Another Blade Has Fallen
by Wintry-Fire
Summary: On the way to Tokyo, Japan, Izume and her family got in a car crash, due to a hollow. One day as Izume wandered back to Karakura Town, she ran into a soul reaper who led her to the Soul Society where her life changed forever.
1. The Unexpected

**Chapter 1- The Unexpected**

I woke up to the sound of birds chirping outside my window, out in this wonderful world. It was a start to another beautiful day in Karakura Town, and I just couldn't wait to see what lies ahead. I jumped out of bed and rushed over to my closet so I could find a pair of clothes to wear. Should I wear shorts or jeans? T-shirt or tank top? And then a couple minutes later I found myself wearing a pair of jean shorts and a plain white tank top. Of course, my favorite color was white, so I wore it almost everyday.

I ran downstairs, getting a big greeting from my parents. My mom was tall, with blonde hair and purple eyes, just like me. My dad was slightly taller than my mom, with brown hair and blue eyes, like my brother.

"Morning Izume!" yelled my brother. My brother was named Suzaku. He was just two years older than me and was starting school this year. I wish I could be five years old like him. Too bad I'm only three.

"Morning Suzaku!" I yelled back, cheerful and proud as always. "So what's for breakfast, Mom?"

"Oh, there's some cereal in the pantry," she replied with her gentle voice. "Remember to only pour as much as you can eat, ok Izu?" Izu was a nickname my family gave to me since it was shorter than my real name.

"Yes Mom, I know," I said in an annoyed tone. I walked over to the pantry and grabbed the box of Cheerios as my dad grabbed me a bowl from the cupboard (since I was too small to reach them myself) and set it down on the table for me. I rushed and poured the perfect amount of cereal in the bowl and went to grab the milk carton from the fridge.

"Careful now, Izu," my dad told me. "Try not to spill the milk this time."

"Got it, Dad" I responded with an even more annoyed tone than before. I carefully poured the milk in my bowl, closed the carton, and placed the milk back in the fridge. I jumped up to my seat and hurriedly ate all of my cereal and drank the milk so that the bowl was left clean, and set the bowl on the counter for my mother to wash.

"Someone's in a hurry today," my mom pointed out. "What's rushing you today, Izu?"

"The faster we finish eating, the faster we get to Tokyo, Mom!" I smiled and ran upstairs to the bathroom so I could brush my teeth (which were absolutely flawless). When I finished Suzaku came into the bathroom to brush his teeth after eating as well.

He laughs. "You're so silly, Izu," he told me as I walked back to my room.

"How? I bet you're excited to go to Tokyo too!" I remarked. I grabbed my bag and dropped it at the top of the stairs.

"Yeah you're right. I am excited too, Izu. I bet there will be tons of things to do in Tokyo!" We both smiled and helped pack all of the small things into our car.

Minutes later we were in our car, an SUV, or otherwise known as a sports utility vehicle, heading towards the big city of Tokyo. I gazed out the window, staring at Karakura Town, as it slowly became smaller and smaller.

"I bet Tokyo is gonna be huge!" I shouted. "There's gonna be big buildings and a bunch of places to go! Are we gonna go shopping when we get there?"

"Not quite yet, Izu. We have to find our hotel first," my dad answered in his usual voice.

"Ok," I sighed. My dad was driving us all the way to the big city. He's like the best driver in the world! My mom sat in the passenger's seat, looking bored and like she has a billion thoughts running through her mind. But I didn't say anything. Me and Suzaku sat in the back, in our booster seats like we always did when we were in the car. He must've woken up early, because when I looked at him he was sleeping with his mouth open, probably dreaming about Tokyo. Or at least that's what I would dream about if I were asleep.

Minutes passed. No, hours. It was so long it felt as if we were driving on an endless highway. But I was wrong. We were actually only a couple miles away from Tokyo. I noticed we were still going the same speed as before, my dad not even giving a hint about slowing down. And then there, only a couple yards away, was a mysterious, large creature, with a mask that reminded me of a skull. I saw it stare me straight in the eyes, and its eyes…they were red, like those that belonged to a monster.

"Daddy watch out!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "You're gonna crash!"

"What's the matter, Izu honey? There's nothing there," he said in a confused voice.

"Sweetie, maybe you're tired. You should get some rest," Mom suggested in her calm voice.

I was confused as I stared at the beastly figure in front of us, now getting bigger in size. Was I the only one here who could see it? Or am I daydreaming? This couldn't be happening!

Then the next thing I felt was an excruciating pain that made me feel like I was set on fire. Like the whole world exploded around me. I couldn't see anything. The world has become a place of darkness that shrouded my mind. Was I in a dream? No. It was something I never expected to happen. I, and my family…were dead.


	2. Chained

**Chapter 2- Chained**

I couldn't believe what just happened. I just can't accept that my life was over. And it was all thanks to that monster, that thing that only I saw. What was it? It looked like a bear mixed with a Minotaur. Only it had that strange white mask over its face.

Then…everything became visible again. Except the only problem was that it was a huge blur. I still felt the pain I felt before, but it wasn't as painful. I unstrapped myself from the booster seat, wondering if I were still alive, and used all the strength I had left to pry the car door open. When I finally got out, I found a women who was panicking and screaming for help. There was another women with her, who was on the phone, probably calling the emergency number that I can't seem to remember.

"Hey, miss…uh what just happened?" I asked in a horrified voice. There was no answer. I waved my hand in front of her face. She didn't even make a reaction. Yet again I was confused. Can she not see me? I tried walking over to the other women, and felt a slight tug on my chest and the sound of a chain being pulled along the street. I turned around to find no one behind me, only to see our wrecked car and the rest of my family, sitting motionless in their seats. The monster was nowhere to be seen.

Next, I started to cry but felt like I had to fight the tears. I knew that my family was gone forever. Suzaku, the one brother that I loved, and my dad, who was the best dad a daughter could have. Then there was mom. She was the sweetest, most caring mother I wished I could be like when I grew up. I loved her the most of all. All of them…gone. But if I'm here, then where are they? Why aren't they with me?

I looked down to where I felt the tug on my chest and found a chain, like the ones used to hold wooden boxes together, or the ones you see on a semi-truck. What was it doing connected to my chest? I yanked at it for at least ten minutes trying to get it off. I finally decided to give up and sat on the ground, alone. Then it hit me. I knew how to get the chain off. I managed to open the trunk of the car and pulled out my dad's toolbox (he was a construction worker). It was extremely heavy so I dropped it on the street and the items inside it scattered across the ground. I found an axe, which I didn't have a clue how to use it, and swung away at the chain connected to my chest. I felt a slight pinch and I was free.

βββββββββ

Hours passed ever since I started wandering my way back to my house in Karakura Town. I was certain I would be locked out, since no one was home and I was only but a lonely soul. There had to be miles more to travel until I got there. Moments later I felt this strange sensation. It was like I was being overpowered by the air itself.

I looked up and there in front of me, was another monster. It was different than the one I saw before, with a white mask and those scary red eyes. This one looked like a mosquito, but much larger in size. I heard a voice crawl out of its mouth from behind its mask.

"Such a large power is coming from this small package? This can't be right…" it groaned. "But I'll eat it anyway."

Panic rose within in me. What am I supposed to do? It wants to eat me! I bolted from my spot and felt my feet dig into the ground as I ran underneath this monster. I looked back and saw the mosquito thing flying at me at the speed of light. I pushed myself to run faster and faster, until my legs couldn't stand it anymore. I tripped on the street and layed there with my eyes shut, prepared for the end. The end of me.

I waited for the moment that I was going to get eaten, but it never came. I heard a voice. One I have never heard before in my life. And the voice was aimed at me. Who can talk to me? I'm a ghost! Then I slowly opened my eyes…and saw…a man. I felt his gaze go through to my eyes. It was powerful. I couldn't manage to creep a word from my mouth.

"Hey, kid" he said, "you're safe now." He picked me up and set me back up on my feet. I stared at the man for a while. Looking amazed at what he was wearing. The man was dressed in a black kimono. No, it wasn't a kimono, but it was close to being one. "What're you staring at?" he hissed.

"S-sorry sir!" I mumbled, "I didn't mean to." I looked down, feeling ashamed for staring at him. "Wh-who are you?" I kicked my feet at the ground.

"I'm a soul reaper. You don't need to know my name, kid," he explained. "Now in return, what's your name?" He placed his hand under my chin and pushed my head up so he can look into my eyes, which made me kind of uncomfortable.

"I'm…..Izume. Izume Shiba, s-sir," I said shyly. "And…what is a soul reaper? And what was that monster that was chasing me?" I searched behind the soul reaper and the monster was gone without a trace.

"Why that's such a nice name you have. A soul reaper is a person who protects souls, like you, from those monsters. So we're kinda like guardians, or gods even. And that "monster" is known as a hollow" he explained. "And soul reapers carry around weapons, called zanpakutou, and use them to cleanse those hollows from their sins. Got that?"

"I guess so. So hollows eat souls? And does every soul reaper have the same power?" I asked, thinking I shouldn't be asking so many questions. I saw him sigh and he started answering my questions.

βββββββββ

I learned a lot about my new life. Like how I was dead, about hollows and soul reapers, and many other things. I just wish I knew this guy's name. Calling him sir is getting quite annoying. I sighed as he finished explaining what a konso is, and that he's gonna use it to send me to this place called "Soul Society".

"It's a nice place over there. You'll make a lot of new friends, and maybe someday you can become a soul reaper like me if you want," he told me as I saw him unsheathe his zanpakutou.

"But what about my family? They all died with me!" I screamed. "I want them to come with me!"

"I'm sorry, kiddo, but I don't know where they are or what they look like. There's a possibility a hollow could've already gotten to them," he looked at me with an "it's-gonna-be-alright" expression. I frowned and felt as if I were the saddest person in the world.

"It's okay. You don't have to apologize. It's not your fault they died…it's cuz I was the only one who saw that hollow before we crashed into it and faced death. It's my fault cuz I couldn't save them!" I yelled. "Why couldn't I be older? Why couldn't I save them? Tell me!" I started crying again.

He sighed. "Look kid, I can't answer those questions for you. And I'm sorry that you couldn't save them. You just got to face the fact that you're the only one left. You have to learn that there was no way for you to save them. You're better off in the Soul Society anyways!" he tried to convince me. It was hard to believe that he was right.

"I'm sorry. Thanks for making me feel the tiniest bit better. And you're right. They're gone. And I'm all alone. So go ahead and send me to this place you call "Soul Society"!" I crossed my arms and gave him the look I have whenever I'm angry. I felt my eyes water.

The soul reaper smiled as he wished me good luck and I was on my way to a new world. A place where things were supposed to be better, and where I can make new friends. I want to grow up. And become a soul reaper…so I can protect those from facing tragic ends like I did. I knew that from now on, I will live a whole new life.


	3. A New Life Begins

**Chapter 3- A New Life Begins**

I arrived in this new world. This place known as Soul Society. I've been wandering around for quite a while now with nowhere to go. Where's some help when you need it? And I found myself wearing a white kimono with a black sash. This works out perfectly for me because these are my two favorite colors.

Later that day I started to realize that I was getting hungry. But the soul reaper I met earlier told me that you only get hungry when you have a lot of spiritual energy. But, where can I find food? I don't even have a clue about how I'm supposed to get around this place.

After about another 30 minutes of walking around whatever district I was sent to, I believe it was Rukon District 64 someone told me, I smelt some food nearby and decided to take a look. I went around a couple corners until I finally reached the source of the smell. There were some stands with some people standing around them. Some were selling food; others were selling other types of items.

I wish I could have some of that food. It smelled so delicious. I went up to the nearest food stand and picked up a roll and stared at it. It was tempting just to take one bite out of it. But I don't have any money to pay for it.

"Put that roll down!" the man selling the food snapped as he slapped the roll out of my hand. "Little twerps like you don't need food. Enless you have money like the rest of my customers, you can't have any of my food!" He turned me around and gave me a light shove. I walked a couple feet away and started to think of a plan. It was useless to go back, but I couldn't just let myself starve. I knew it was a bad thing to do, and I was taught better, but it left me one choice. I had to steal food.

βββββββββ

I kept running away holding the rolls in my arms trying to escape the man I had made angry. Stealing wasn't the worst of it, but the crowd of angry salesmen and customers was. I didn't think I was going to make it this far so I don't really have a plan on how I'm going to escape. I ducked around corners and made a bunch of shortcuts until I finally lost the mob. I sighed and plopped myself into a sitting position on the ground and started to dig in. The rolls were delicious, but I feel guilty for having to steal them. But it has to be done, because it's for survival right?

That night I had no clue where I was supposed to stay. Was there a shelter of some kind? Or did I have to make one myself? I was too tired and exhausted of the days events and fell asleep on the spot. I dreamed of a better life with friends and food. There was no stealing or anything bad. It was peaceful.

βββββββββ

In the morning I woke up, stretched, and remembered that there was no one to say good morning to, or anyone to make me breakfast. And I was still hungry from the night before. I decided I had to give stealing food another shot. Hopefully today would be better.

I strolled back through the district, scavenging for good food. There wasn't much to choose from. I saw more rolls, some onigiri, and some fruits and veggies. I considered trying to get all three, but it was too risky. So I took my chances at getting the onigiri, which was probably the best choice I've made ever since I got here. I ate as I ran, trying not to let eating slow me down. When I finished eating, I was still being chased, so it was time I made my escape. I ran on and on, taking shortcuts, dodging fists, getting called bad names, and then after a while I didn't notice that they stopped chasing me, so I kept on running. I reached a three-way intersection and then the shock of my life happened.

Right when I got to the middle of the intersection, a boy about my age, maybe older, ran into me, probably after stealing some food too. But that's not the shocking part. What happened was that right before he ran into me I looked at him. After our clash we hit the ground, him on top of me…his lips touching mine. (Yeah I know I'm only three years old) It was an accident so I don't think it meant anything, but there was one thing that was caught in my mind. I felt this spark, like a connection between the two of us. It made me think of fate, it felt like we were meant to meet each other.

He scrambled up off of me, back up to his feet, and offered me his hand to help me up. I gladly accepted, but after I was back on my feet he turned around and tried running away. I saw right through him and grabbed his wrist on his right hand.

"Wait!" I yelled. "I want to ask you something!" I turned him around and saw his face clearly for the first time.

"I'm so sorry!" he blurted, "It was an accident! I swear!" I saw him blush a little as he broke eye contact with me.

"No, don't worry, it's okay. I promise." I said in the calmest, least embarrassed way. I blushed a little like he did. "I just wanted to ask you what your name was." His face…I've seen him before around here.

"My name? It's Shuhei. Shuhei Hisagi'" he answered. "Now tell me your name." He looked back up into my eyes as if he finally found a friend. I'm sure I looked the same way.

"Izume. Izume Shiba," I replied. "Would you like to be friends with me?" I looked at him with a gentle smile like my mom used to do when she met someone for the first time.

"Like what do you mean by friends? You know, after what just happened?" Shuhei said in a shy tone. "You mean like boyfriend and girlfriend?"

I almost laughed at his question but held it back. "No, silly! We're way too young for that!" I started to tease him, "But when we grow up if you're still willing to do that we can!" I giggled.

"Oh shut up!" he yelled defensively, "It's not gonna ever happen…" he yanked his wrist from my grasp. "But we can be friends though."

He smiled a cheerful smile at me, and I smiled for the first time since I got to the Soul Society. A new path unfolds ahead of me. And I know my life will get a whole lot better starting today.


	4. The Approaching Storm

**Chapter 4- The Approaching Storm**

Shuhei and I spent the whole day looking for a place to stay. It turns out that neither of us had a place to stay. When we got hungry we decided to come up with a new plan for getting food, because we both had a lot of spiritual pressure.

As we walked towards where the food stands were, we noticed we got caught in a four-way intersection. We looked at each other as we tried to figure out which way we should go. I was about to speak but in the corner of our eyes we saw a small kid around our age maybe, running towards us. The kid was blonde, but it was more of a bleach blonde color. He wasn't paying any attention as to where he was going, so I thought maybe we should get his attention.

We started yelling, but since we didn't know his name it was almost impossible to get him to even look our way. Then the event that followed was just as expected. He ran into Shuhei, who later bumped into me. We all fell to the ground, and again time repeated itself. It wasn't as bad this time, knowing that we were just friends.

I scrambled to my feet and helped Shuhei up, then walked over to the other kid and held out my hand to help him up as well. He looked up at me with his blue eyes and an apologetic expression.

"I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention…" he said quietly. He took my hand and I pulled him up to his feet. "I'm Izuru Kira. Who are you guys?"

I smiled and shook his hand. "I'm Izume Shiba, and this is my friend Shuhei! It's nice to meet you Izuru!" He managed to smile and I finally heard him say the words I wanted to hear.

"Hey, uh…do you guys wanna be my friends?" he asked. His face showed that we were his first friends, and I felt a happy sensation rush through my body.

"Of course!" Shuhei and I replied at the same time. We all laughed as we welcomed Izuru to our little group.

After a few minutes of getting to know each other, we continued our search for a place to stay. We came along an area that looked like a forest, and decided we'll have to make our own shelter. I gathered Izuru and Shuhei in a huddle and discussed what I had planned.

βββββββββ

It's been hours through this horrifying storm. The clouds had destruction written all over them, and the lightning was fierce. I held all the cloth I had gathered tightly against my chest and trudged through the district, desperately trying to find my friends. Where could they be?

Moments later I came around a bend, to find Izuru holding what looked like an umbrella over his head. He was sitting up in a ball, grasping his legs as close to his body as he could, terrified from the rain. I ran up to him as fast as I could and pulled him up to his feet.

"We gotta go find Shuhei!" I shouted over the roaring thunder. "And we have to go make our shelter as fast as we can!" I grabbed his arm and we ran through the mud, off to find our missing link.

We were drenched with water, our kimonos dripping like a freshly spilled drink off a table. We kept running around, starting to lose hope of finding Shuhei. We decided to go back to the forest where we were going to build our shelter. Once we arrived we were shivering from the cold rain, unable to dry off.

Then we took a good look around, and trembled with excitement to see Shuhei sitting on the ground waiting for us. He was glaring at the sky, wondering if he'll ever see us again. I dropped the cloth on the wet ground and ran up to Shuhei, giving him a great big hug of joy, landing on my knees.

"Oh my gosh I was so worried! I thought I would never see you again!" I said in the most concerning voice. "I'm so glad we found you! Or else I'd be the saddest kid in all of Soul Society!" I felt tears roll down my cheeks as I felt his arms wrap around me.

"It's nice to see you too, Izume!" Shuhei whispered in my ear. "I wouldn't be able to live another day without you." I knew that he was probably shedding tears himself, proud to see that I was alive. It was that or he was just exaggerating to make me feel better.

I released my arms and stood up, no longer crying. I helped Shuhei get up and we started to build our shelter as the storm slowly faded away, to release the sunshine and fill the atmosphere with happiness once again.

"Well, we better hurry," I sighed. "It's almost night time. And we need to figure out how we're getting food too." I turned my back to the forest and stared up at the sky. Getting food will be easier with the three of us.

About two hours later our shelter was built and we were famished. We gathered together and talked about our new strategy for getting us all food. Izuru was just like us, high spiritual pressure and the need for food. Off we went on the hunt for tonight's meal. It was decided. Izuru would make the distractions, Shuhei would find our escape route, and I would be in charge of grabbing the food.

Tonight's dinner was made up of rice, some bread, and a couple fruits. I'm glad we got something. It wasn't difficult to get all of this. We all devoured our food inside our shelter, and used the extra cloth to make some beds for the night. The day was exhausting, but after tonight, I was sure everything was going to be alright.


	5. Dangerous Encounters

**Chapter 5- Dangerous Encounters**

Six years have passed. I was now nine years old, and Shuhei and Izuru were both ten. We were all the greatest of friends by now. I can think back to the night when I thought everything was going to be alright. I was right…up until this very moment on this very day.

We were playing tag. It was a beautiful sunny day out. We were all having fun, I was "it". I smiled as I chased after Shuhei, feeling the cool breeze brush through my hair. Two other kids we didn't know were playing with us, running ahead of him. Then there was a sudden burst of spiritual pressure in front of us. We all stopped in our tracks, staring in horror at the enormous hollow standing there with a ravenous look in its eyes.

I gulped, frozen in my spot, not knowing what to do. I couldn't say a word, and it felt like the world has stopped turning. Then, I heard a scream. A warning from Shuhei himself. The words that came out of his mouth tore through to my eardrums, and they said, _Run!_ And that's just what the other kids did. I held my ground.

"Come on! Run!" Shuhei shouted. "Get out of here!" he started running away and I did too, hoping that there won't be any casualties, like on that day I died.

The hollow was in deep pursuit of us, craving our souls. I was running in front of Shuhei, and as I looked back to see if he was doing okay, I saw him pick up a stick off the ground and make a foolish attempt to fend it off. I stopped running and turned around, thinking how it was stupid of him to face it alone. He looked back and saw me watching him.

"Izume! Run for it! Go!" he told me. That was right before the hollow's tentacle-like body part snatched him up and flailed through the air. I let out a scream and picked up a rock off the dirt.

"Shuhei!" I screamed in terror. What was I supposed to do? There was no way I could save him from a hollow that strong.

Then right when I was about to throw the rock at the hollow, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a soul reaper. One wearing a white haori with the symbol for the number nine on the back. He was a Captain. The highest rank you can get in the Thirteen Court Guard Squads. I looked at his appearance carefully. He was tall, and muscular, and had short white hair. He was extremely powerful, I can tell just by the way he looked.

He sent some other men, soul reapers as well, to attack the hollows legs. There were four of them I believe. They sliced one leg each, and backed off. I saw blood spray out from each cut, and looked away for a bit in disgust, but looked back to watch what happened next. The hollow refused to let Shuhei go, and started to move him towards its mouth. Now, I couldn't bear to watch how my best friend would die on this day.

I heard the Captain say a couple words, but I couldn't understand them clearly from where I was. There was a whirl of wind around him and then the hollow was chopped to pieces. Shuhei fell to the ground, only to be caught safely. The Captain started to tell Shuhei something, and I'm sure it was going to be fine. I saw Shuhei start crying, the reason I did not know. I sat down on my knees watching in the distance. Shortly after, Shuhei ran back over to where I was and gave me a smile to show me he was fine. I did the same.

"Hey, this is a nice spot. Want to come back here sometime?" I questioned. "Just to check it out I mean."

"Maybe some other day, Izume. It's a little dangerous to be here right now, don't you think?" he said with the tone he uses when he's concerned about our safety.

I nodded. "Okay. Let's go back and find Izuru, he might be worried about us," I got up and started walking back towards where we came from.

βββββββββ

We were getting ready to hit the hay that night. I laid down in my bed, waiting for them to fall asleep. I wanted to go back to that spot we found earlier that day, without telling them I was going there. It was going to be my little secret.

Once I knew for sure that they were sleeping, I quietly crept out from underneath my blanket and walked back over to the clearing. I stuck around in the trees, because I saw that there was a tent placed in the area. Then I watched as I noticed two men standing outside the tent as if they were on guard.

Minutes passed and suddenly, the men were surrounded in darkness, and when the darkness cleared up…they were dead. I ducked lower to hide behind the bushes, realizing that Shuhei was right about not coming here. This was a dangerous situation.

The Captain rushed out from inside the tent with another man and turned his head to the tent, yelling a few words. It was a mistake for him to come out, because in an instant, the same darkness I saw before was there again. I knew that the Captain was done for. I looked away and sunk even lower towards the ground, hoping that I wasn't the next victim.

I waited in that spot for what felt like an hour before I peered up to see if it was safe. Instead I saw the Captain, and a girl that was most likely his lieutenant. But they looked like they were transformed into hollows. The Captain went off into the forest like he was going to kill someone. I looked back to where the girl was standing, but she wasn't there.

I sat behind that bush for a while, my heart racing. I didn't understand why I didn't just leave. I was deep in thought, trying to comprehend what was going on. My thoughts stopped when I heard voices. There was maybe five or six of them by the sound of it. The words they said didn't sound happy or sad, but angry.

I didn't watch what was happening, but it didn't sound good. I heard the sounds of swords being unsheathed, and the sounds of battle. It was a frightening scene. I waited silently for it to end. And when the battling finally ended, there was a new voice. I decided to look up and see what was going on.

Bodies of soul reapers were sprawled out on the ground, with what looked like hollow masks covering their faces. Then I saw another Captain, with long blonde hair, I assumed it was a woman but it was a man from the sound of his voice. He was talking to this other soul reaper, a lieutenant, with brown hair and glasses. This lieutenant was standing next to two soul reapers. The one on his right was small in stature, a kid possibly. The soul reaper to his left was a grown man with dark skin.

I couldn't hear the conversation going on between the Captain and the lieutenant, so I took a risk and went as close as it took to hear what they were saying. I listened carefully, and it seems like the lieutenant betrayed all of the soul reapers who were slain this night.

There was a rustle in the trees and a shadowy figure appeared next to the lieutenant. After a while I realized that this figure was a man dressed in all black. Was he trying to stay hidden from something? Shortly after he arrived, another man, dressed with a cape and shaded glasses, crept out from the trees. He was much larger and seemed to have a large amount of power.

I continued to watch, but the lieutenant was walking away. He seemed very confident in himself, there was a smile hidden by the back of his head. The man with the cape, mumbled a couple of words that made no sense to me, and a magical power was flung towards the lieutenant. It was bright, and when it made contact with the lieutenant, it was deflected. And after the magic disappeared, the lieutenant and the two soul reapers who were with him were gone.

I turned to watch the two men who showed up a while before, who were now talking about the soul reapers who lied across the ground. The man with the cape clamped his hands together in a weird shape, and they all disappeared, even the soul reapers who have fallen in battle.

βββββββββ

I crawled under my blanket and closed my eyes hoping to fall asleep after the day's events. I didn't know whether I should tell Shuhei and Izuru or not. I'd have to tell them in the morning when we awoke. But then Shuhei would freak and yell at me for not listening to him. I laid there for about fifteen minutes before I drifted off into a deep sleep. Hopefully tomorrow would be a better day.


	6. I Want to Protect Lives

**Chapter 6- I Want to Protect Lives**

I woke in the morning with a scream of terror from my dream…err…nightmare I mean. It woke up both Izuru and Shuhei, who both came over to ask me why I was screaming. I felt my eyes watering, remembering the events from the night before.

"What happened? Why are you crying?" they both asked me with worried looks on their faces. "Had a bad dream?"

I remembered that my nightmare was a replay of last night and said, "Sorry Shuhei…..I-I….I went back to that field where the hollow attacked us…I went there after you fell asleep" I started to cry more.

"You did? Did anything happen to you?" Shuhei yelled. "Stop crying and tell me, I mean us, what happened!"

Izuru continued to have that worried look on his face and stared at me, waiting for me to explain everything. I took a gulp and a deep breath before speaking.

"Well, I'm fine, nothing happened to me….." I sobbed, "And there were these soul reapers there. They were of the ranks Captain and Lieutenant. And one of them was the Captain who saved your life, Shuhei…" I explained.

I looked down like I was guilty, and waited to see if they had anything to say. I felt them both gazing at me, with both worried and interested expressions. I looked back up, my eyes no longer creating tears.

"They were all attacked…and had hollow masks on their faces. This other lieutenant was behind it all." I continued. "There were these two other people there too; one was a soul reaper I assume."

I stopped when I realized I made a long story short. Then I saw Shuhei move so he was on his knees, and leaned over and gave me a nice, comforting hug. I think I felt a tear drop on my shoulder and looked at Izuru as I hugged him back.

"I'm glad you're okay," Shuhei whispered in my ear. "I promise I won't let anything happen to you." And then I knew what I wanted to tell him. And hopefully he would agree with me.

I released my arms from around his waist and put on an act of bravado. I smiled and waited for Shuhei to gather himself. The words ran through my mind over and over, _I want to become a soul reaper. I want to become a soul reaper. _ Then without noticing, the words escaped my mouth and I saw Shuhei return my smile, and Izuru sitting there, expressionless.

"So, what do you think?" I asked in the bravest tone I could manage. "About being a soul reaper?" I waited there with an anxious look on my face, feeling nervous as I waited for an answer.

The atmosphere was silent for a couple minutes. I just sat there patiently, switching my gaze between my two best friends. The suspense kept building up until finally I heard Shuhei speak. But I couldn't hear what he was saying.

"Can you please repeat that?" I asked. "A bit louder this time." He repeated. But I still couldn't hear him. Was my hearing off?

"I said you're not going there alone!" he shouted, but immediately covered his mouth like he didn't want Izuru to hear him say that.

We all looked at each other, me and Izuru with the same shocked expression. For some reason, I felt too excited to even say one word. Shuhei had blush marks on his face, and I got up to my feet and stood next to him. He looked up at me with that smile I love, and got up as well.

"Yay! Thanks for coming with me!" I yelled in excitement. I looked down at Izuru, who was still expressionless. "Are you coming with us, Izuru? You're free to come with" I gave him the best smile I could.

He didn't say anything for a while, and finally looked up at me. "You guys can go. I don't want to be a soul reaper…" he sounded depressed, which demolished my smile.

"A-are you sure about that? You'll be all alone again if you don't," I tried convincingly. "It'd be fun if you came with us to Soul Reaper Academy!" Shuhei jumped in.

"C'mon Izuru come with us!" he said encouragingly. "What happened to sticking together? We can't be us without you!"

"N-no, I'm very sorry you guys. I'm not going with you. Maybe I'll consider it, but you two can go on ahead." He apologized.

Me and Shuhei looked at each other sadly, wishing that we could've convinced Izuru to come with us. But the choice was made and there was no looking back. Someday, we will be reunited. I can feel it.

"Well, we're going to go apply to be accepted into the academy then…" I mumbled. I walked over to Izuru and gave him a hug like the ones my parents gave me before they left us with a babysitter, except this time there is no babysitter. "Good-bye Izuru. I'll miss you so much!" I gave him a kiss on the cheek before getting up and walking a couple feet away.

"This is good-bye, Izuru." Shuhei said. "I'll miss you too. Have fun and take care of this place for us. And hopefully you'll join us someday." He shook Izuru's hand before nodding at me to confirm that it's time to go.

We finished saying our good-byes to our little shelter and our best friend, as we started our new journey to a new life.


	7. First Day

**Chapter 7- First Day**

Days passed as me and Shuhei sat somewhere in Rukon District 64, remembering the good times we've had here. There were the plots we made for food, the occasional game of hide and seek, some gymnastics, and plenty of other fun things. We waited, and waited. Then finally we were accepted into Soul Reaper Academy.

"Wow! I'm so excited! Aren't you?" I asked Shuhei with a giant grin across my face. I couldn't wait until we got there.

"Yea, this'll be great! I hope we get put in the same class!" he replied. "Maybe we'll make some friends there too!"

βββββββββ

We were here. The Soul Reaper Academy. All the girls wore the same uniform; white tops and red bottoms. The guys wore pretty much the same thing, except instead of red they had blue. We were put in the same classes, this included kidou and bakudou, the magical powers that soul reapers get to use. It was so fun. We did well in that class. Fighting with wooden swords was interesting, but we weren't the best at it.

One day, about two years later, there was this guy I just learned was in our class. Well, there goes my blonde moment for the day. He caught my eye when I saw him, I didn't know if there was anything special about him, but the thing was…he was like the male version of me.

We were out in the hall, Shuhei standing by my side as usual, and I bumped into my gender-bender. My books slipped onto the floor, and when I went down to pick them up…he was helping me.

A little embarrassed, I stuttered, "S-sorry, I didn't mean to bump into you l-like that…" he handed me my books and we made eye contact. "T-thanks for helping me get my things"

"You're welcome. I'm Kaoru Suzuki. I'm a third year, you're in my class," he replied. "Izume Shiba, right?"

"Uh, yeah. That's me!" I laughed shyly. "You're the guy with the best grades in the class, am I wrong?" I broke eye contact and stood over by Shuhei because I felt safer next to him.

"Nope. I'm top dog!" he laughed. "So you two, you and Shuhei, are you guys dating?"

"NO!" I shouted really loud that everyone in the hallway looked at me. I took a gulp and hid behind Shuhei. "I mean, no we're not. We're best friends…"

"Oh, sorry about that. It's just that you two are always, and I mean ALWAYS together. You never leave each other alone I mean. You guys are like perfect for each other!"

Me and Shuhei laughed. "Hahaha, you're kidding right?" We chuckled and looked at each other, and then noticed he wasn't laughing. "Oh, you're serious?"

"Yeah I mean it! I've watched how you guys act when you're together; to me it seems like you guys really like each other." He said confidently. "How long have you known each other?"

"Umm, about nine years to my knowledge." I responded, "And there were a couple bumps along the way that probably support you…"

"Like what? You guys kiss or something?" Kaoru questioned. "The answer is yes, am I wrong?"

I was starting to get annoyed by his assumptions, even though the last one was right. And I was starting to think he was correct. Maybe me and Shuhei were perfect for each other, we just didn't realize it or were too afraid to admit it. I don't know which one was right, but I guess we'll find out eventually.

"We better get to class or we're gonna be late," Shuhei lied. I knew he was annoyed by all of Kaoru's questions too. "C'mon Izume we should get going." He interlaced his fingers with mine and pulled me down the hall to the point where he can't see or hear us.

"I have a question for you," Shuhei told me, "What do you think of Kaoru?"

"Well, for one he's asking too many questions, and making too many assumptions…" I explained. "And he's kinda scary because he looks like me" I looked down the hall to be sure he wasn't following us.

"I agree with you. What are you gonna say if he wants to be your friend?" he wondered.

"Well, I can't just be mean and reject him…so I'll just be nice and act like I'm his friend…" I answered. "That's not a bad idea."

We continued through the day, trying to be as nice as we could to Kaoru. After a couple of days he started to treat me like we were family. It kind of made me uncomfortable, but I dealt with it like I normally did. Shuhei seemed a little more protective over me than usual at the time. I guess it has to do with what he whispered to me before we came to the academy. I remember those exact words, _I promise I won't let anything happen to you._ Or at least that's what I'm thinking.

βββββββββ

I was outside, sitting in the grass getting ready for another kidou lesson when Kaoru comes and sits down next to me. I pretended not to notice and ran the chants from earlier lesson through my head. He was about to ask me something when the teacher told me to demonstrate yesterday's kidou spell.

"Hadou 33! Shak-kahou!" I yelled as a red energy orb shot from my hand and hit the target. I put all my strength into that one shot, thinking of how Izuru wasa doing, made a slight mistake, and it pushed me down onto my back because it was so strong. Then a hand was thrown in front of my face. I looked up and made an instant oh-no face.

"Need help up?" Kaoru offered, curling and uncurling his fingers. "You should try to control your spiritual pressure more."

That last remark ticked me off. "Thanks, but I can get up myself. I appreciate you trying to help me though." I got up and dusted off my uniform. "And by the way I was controlling my spiritual pressure. I just made it higher on purpose. At least I hit the target." I lied. I hated lying, but I'm just really good at it. Then I took a deep breath and tried again. This time I held up two fingers, and muttered the chant.

βββββββββ

The rest of the day went by well…except for the constant appearances of Kaoru the Great. I was starting to think he "liked" me, except much creepier because of his obnoxious personality. A couple other students saw us...I mean him, talking to me and they asked me: "Are you twins?" and if they knew we weren't at all related they'd tell us "You guys would be a good couple!" Well here's what I have to say about both of those. Eww! That's weird, and the idea just makes me want to vomit. And I barely know the guy, and I don't really like him, so why would I go out with him anyways?

This day barely meant a thing to me. There's too many things to worry about, or there's always something there to stress me out. I can't take it anymore. Hopefully I pass the exam and get the heck out of here to be in my very own squad. The exam is tomorrow so I have to study super hard tonight.


	8. Am I Dead?

**Chapter 8- Am I Dead?**

Shuhei and I were now sixth years at Soul Reaper Academy. I am glad that we could finally take the exam this year and get assigned into squads. Well, if we pass I mean. I'm so excited because today is the day we get to lead a field mission to what soul reapers call "The World of the Living". This is where I used to live. I heard we sixth years, Shuhei, Me, Kanisawa, Kaoru, and Aoga, were going to teach Freshman Class One about performing the Konso in The World of the Living.

We prepared for this mission carefully. The first years were gathered in front of us, staring in awe at the five of us. Shuhei had a pretty good reputation, since he actually did some jobs for the Thirteen Court Guard Squads before graduating the academy. I wish I could've gone too.

I looked through all the first years, and then one student caught my attention out of all of them. It was probably the happiest moment of the day. I turned to Shuhei and nudged his arm lightly with my elbow and whispered in his ear.

"Look straight ahead and in between Renji and Momo. Tell me who you see," I smiled. "This will be the awesomest day ever! And I don't care if awesomest is a word, I just had to say it."

"Is that…I-Izuru?" he whispered back. "It's kinda hard to recognize him, you know, since it's been six years."

I nodded with the biggest smile on my face. "Yeah, that's him! You think he recognizes us?" I couldn't help but to think he was crazy for finally deciding to join us after all these years.

"Maybe. Time to get started with our class," he replied quietly before explaining the instructions to the first years. "We'll find out soon enough."

I nodded in agreement. As we finished explaining I felt a tap on my left shoulder. I looked to see who it was, but remembered it was Kaoru. He smiled and waved at me then paused before remembering he had a question for me.

"Hey, Izume…just wondering but what were you two lovebirds whispering about?" he whispered. "Something special happen?"

I grunted in anger and almost punched him in the face. "Like I told you a billion times before, we're NOT going out with each other!" I explained not too loudly, teeth clenched. "And for your information it's none of your business so stay out of it."

"Weeeeelll your denial just proves it even more that you L-I-K-E like him!" he teased. He then put his hand on my head and ruffled my hair. "I, know for a fact that he likes you just as much as you like him."

"Shut your hole, jerk!" I slapped his hand off my head, not noticing that everyone was looking at us, some giving me a dirty look. "Oh, whoops…" my cheeks turned a little pink.

βββββββββ

The mission was going well so far. I kept an eye on Izuru's group, learning that they were all doing a fantastic job dealing with the dummy hollows. I stood next to Shuhei, but kept a small distance between us, as it might lead to Kaoru making fun of us again.

I started to stare at him, noticing how much his appearance has changed over the years. Like the tattoo he got on his left cheek, the number sixty-nine, inspired by that Captain who saved him years back. He looked much more mature, he had good posture, great stature, it seemed like everything about him was perfect. His hair has even gotten longer. I sort of admired him, and maybe started to admit to myself that I thought he was…how do I say this? Good looking maybe? That's true, but he was also special to me and different than all the other guys, let's just say that.

Then I heard shouting. Coming from him. I came out of my daze and saw the students in panic. What was going on? Out in front of us was a huge, lumbering hollow. Bigger than any other hollow I've seen. I pretended to know what was going on around us.

"Everybody run!" I heard Shuhei yell. Then I saw that Kanisawa and Aoga were covered in blood, dead as a rock, and started to panic myself. This hollow was too much for us to handle. Shuhei, being his brave self, stood his ground and drew his zanpakutou as he called for reinforcements. I drew my zanpakutou as well.

"Izume, can you do me a favor? No, I mean this is an order…" Shuhei said calmly like he was willing to sacrifice himself. "Go find Kaoru. I know he pisses you off, but please just do it."

I stood there all worried, when I should've just obeyed orders and left. "Y-yes…yes sir!" I responded, concerned about Shuhei. I jumped up to a rooftop and looked around for Kaoru. Where could he be? It'd help if I knew whether he was conscious or not. Then I found him, about fifty or so feet away, lying barely conscious, with a little blood running down his arm and a little on his face.

"K-Kaoru! Are you okay?" I screamed, thinking of how that was a stupid question. I started to run over to him, but out of nowhere came a hollow, about the size of a house, with immense spiritual pressure. It overwhelmed me and I fell to my knees. "Wh-who are you?" I managed.

There was no answer. I watched helplessly as it picked up his weakened body, which I'm guessing he didn't have the strength to move. It started to move away, and jumped off the edge of the structure. I kept my eyes pointed in that direction, wondering what it wanted with him. Then I saw blood, spray up from below. I gulped. Was Kaoru dead?

βββββββββ

I was back at the sight of where Shuhei was. He was struggling to fend off the hollow from before. The one who killed Aoga and Kanisawa. I joined in to help him but was soon injured myself, with a wound slashed down from my left shoulder to the right side of my waist. It was excruciating. I fell to the ground in agony, and watched Shuhei's face become pained by my injury.

"Izume!" He yelped at the top of his lungs, taking a swipe to his head. He slid feet away from where I lay, blood dripping from the three deep cuts that were now permanently engraved onto the face I loved. Then Izuru, Renji, and Momo hurried in to assist him, disobeying their orders to get out of here.

I watched with the last ounce of strength I had. I was unaware that there were more hollows in the area. I thought that this was going to be the end of our lives. There was no way we could survive. And now that I'm almost nothing, Shuhei is going to get himself killed trying to save my remaining life. I didn't even get a heartwarming reunion with Izuru.

βββββββββ

Reinforcements arrived. I barely saw who it was, my eyesight becoming blurry. There were two figures. One of them was probably a Captain, but the spiritual pressure felt familiar. The other, was most likely the Captain's Lieutenant. Their spiritual pressure also seemed familiar to me.

I heard the howling of the remaining hollows, which were soon eliminated by the reinforcements. I'm glad we were saved. I get to see my best friends again, unless I fade away first. But I doubt that will happen because I can sense that we will all be healed soon.

Then a thought came to mind. What happened to Kaoru? I wondered if he was still alive, but what about that hollow who abducted him? What did it want with him? That I did not know, and from this moment on, I was convinced I would never see him again.


	9. Recovery

**Chapter 9- Recovery**

I woke up from my horrible sleep. I couldn't tell where I was, but there were lights and squad four members walking around. I jumped up into sitting position, only to fall back down due to the pain from my injuries. How long was I unconscious? Then I realized I was in the infirmary where my wounds were being treated. There was some chatter nearby, the voices were recognizable, and I got up slowly to look around. When I saw who it was, I felt a grin spread across my face.

"Well, I see you're awake now, Izume. How are you feeling?" I heard someone say. I turned to look at who it was, and there, standing next to my cot, was a lieutenant. It was Lieutenant Isane Kotetsu from squad four!

"I-I'm fine. Thanks for asking. Um how long have I been unconscious?" I asked, a little nervous. "And when will I be able to go back to the academy and see my friends?"

"You're welcome. It's only been a couple hours, so your injuries weren't as bad as I thought. You should be able to go back soon. You just have to be careful, ok?" she answered. "Would you like to see your visitors? They really want to see you."

"Oh, yes! Of course I do!" I replied anxious to get up. I swung my legs over to the side of the cot and slowly lowered myself to the floor. I held my grip on the side of the cot until I gained my balance. "I'm ready."

"Are you sure you can walk?" Isane asked. "You might fall if you're not careful."

"Yeah. I'll be fine, see?" I walked a couple feet away and then back. "Now can you lead me to my friends? I really want to see them; I want to know if they're okay."

She nodded and lead me over to where Izuru, Momo, Renji, and Shuhei were sitting. The moment they saw me they all stood up, with smiles on their faces. Shuhei was the first one to say anything.

"Izume!" he sighed with relief and ran up and gave me the most caring hug he ever gave me. "Thank goodness you're okay! I hope you'll forgive me…"

His hug made me feel like I was the only thing on his mind. He must've been so worried about me, because I sensed joy, comfort, and warmth coming from the tone of his voice. I was so happy that he was okay, that I felt my eyes water and a tear roll down my cheek.

When he released me, he held his hands to mine. The first thing I noticed was the bandages he had on his face. They made me feel sad and ashamed I couldn't have helped him. I let go of his right hand, and moved my hand up to the bottom of his jaw, below the bandages. He used his right hand to wipe the tear off my face.

"Oh my gosh, Shuhei…are you okay?" I said with the most concern I've ever had. "Your face, it's…" my voice cut off.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine, Izume. You should be more worried about yourself, I mean you got hurt more than I did…" he held my left hand again, and for a moment we stared into each other's eyes, and it felt like one of those moments that happen in movies when people would kiss.

"Hey, sorry to interrupt your happiness, but we all would like to say some things to her too," Renji remarked. Izuru nodded in agreement.

Shuhei let go of my hands and Izuru gave me a nice careful hug too, just not as long. "It's nice to see you again," Izuru said. "I'm glad you're okay, you took quite an awful blow."

"Yeah, but I'll be fine. So how was your six years without us? Was it boring?" I asked. "I really missed you, and you're crazy for finally deciding to come with us."

"Well, it was a little lonely and boring, but I made it through. I wish you guys could've stopped by for a visit, but you must've been busy with all your work here."

"I wish we could've too. It'd be nice. So I see you made some friends." I smiled. Renji and Momo got up and shook my hand.

"We're pleased to meet you. We're happy to see our teacher is okay." They both announced. "We're sorry about the other sixth years…"

That brought up quite a few thoughts. It's sad how we lost three of our sixth years, all on the same day. The only thing that I was still wondering about was if Kaoru was alive. I don't know why I felt the least bit concerned about him, but it felt different not having anyone that I could get mad at anymore. My smile disappeared.

"It's ok. They did well. I'm proud of them." I softly smiled.

"Thanks for saving me earlier," I heard Shuhei tell them. "If it weren't for you guys, I'd be a goner."

That made me happy again. I was thankful that they helped him. I wouldn't be able to handle another day without him. And I told myself that no matter what happened, I would do whatever it takes to keep all of my friends alive. Especially Shuhei.

βββββββββ

We returned to Soul Reaper Academy, getting all these fascinated looks from other students. I was glad to be back. Glad to be able to continue my journey towards becoming a Soul Reaper. The only thing that was in my way now, was the exam. We were to take it in a couple days, and all we had to do was pass it. Then we would fulfill our goals.

We continued our normal schedule. Every once in a while a student would come up to us, thinking we were the greatest in our class for surviving the hollow attack in The World of the Living. Other students would be concerned about our injuries, or thought we were wimps for having them. Either way, we were getting the most attention we've ever had.


	10. Dreams in the Evening

**Chapter 10- Dreams in the Evening**

It was the day of the exam. I've been studying for it for the past couple of days, and a little this morning. I was nervous yet excited for this day to come because after our tests are graded we'll just have to wait for our results. After that we'll know what our squads are and our ranks.

I came to remember the day Kaoru was talking with the teacher, in private. I couldn't help but to listen in on their conversation. They were talking about how he was supposed to graduate early or something because they had him take the exam earlier than usual. I wish we could've graduated early.

βββββββββ

There was chatter out in the hallway. Students were talking about how the test was easier or harder than they thought. Some people were eager to find out if they passed or not, like I was. I couldn't stop thinking about how the exam was both easy and hard.

"So, how do you think you did?" Shuhei broke the silence between us. "You think you passed?" a friendly smile grew on his face.

I sighed. "I sure hope so," I muttered under my breath. "I think I did pretty well." I leaned my back against the wall and looked down at the floor. "How do you think you did?"

"Hey, you should look at people when you're talking to them. What did you say, you were so quiet," he whispered in my ear.

I turned my head to look at him, our faces only inches apart. "I said, I sure hope so. I think I did pretty well. How do you think you did?" I said a little louder and took a step away from him.

"That's good. Is there something bugging you?" he asked me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. "You aren't turning emo on me, are you?" he teased.

"No, I'm fine," I giggled. "And why would I turn emo?" A soft smile appeared on my face.

Shuhei moved his arm down off of my shoulder. "I don't know," Shuhei replied, "maybe because of what happened a couple days ago? I think the hollow altered you."

We laughed. "Yeah, that's exactly what happened, haha!" I responded sarcastically. I felt him put his arms around my waist and he pushed me a little forward to stand behind me.

"Well there's only one way to find out if you're really Izume!" he removed his hands and startled to tickle me.

I screamed and laughed because he was the only one who knew where I was ticklish. "Hey! Stop it!" I tried to say between laughs, "People are staring!" I pointed out playfully.

"Hmm, I guess Lieutenant Isane did pretty well healing you up. So now we know that you are the real Izume," he said like he just stopped doubting me.

βββββββββ

We were walking back to our dorms, it was a nice evening after classes for hanging with all my friends. We had a good conversation going about how classes were going, and about how we were going to stay friends no matter what. I know that may sound cheesy but it wasn't me who started with that topic.

"We're all gonna still be friends even after we graduate Soul Reaper Academy, right?" Momo asked us all. "Even though some of us will have to wait for the others to graduate?"

"Yes, of course!" I answered, not knowing why I sounded so excited about it. "Friends 'til the end!"

"Ha maybe you and Shuhei will someday be more than best friends, Izume," Izuru and Renji joked. "We all know what you guys do in your free time."

I made an annoyed facial expression. "Yeah rig-," I was cut off by Shuhei.

"Oh come on guys cut her some slack, you won't know if that'll ever happen," he said a little defensively.

They all snickered, even Momo. "You're always taking her side Shuhei. Don't tell us that you "like" herrrr, or _do_ you?"

We both had enough of their making fun of us. But to be honest, it did seem like Shuhei liked me. I could tell that from his behavior. The question that I had to ask myself was, _do I like him in the same way?_ I didn't want to answer it, no matter how many times it came to mind.

"Stop bagging on us," I shouted aloud. "It's starting to become mean instead of jokes and teasing." I covered my mouth, not meaning to say that out loud. I felt my cheeks get flushed with redness. I saw them all get apologetic looks on their faces, all except for Shuhei, who had a grin on his face and put his arm around my shoulders.

"So, should we call that even?" he asked me.

"What?" I talked quietly.

"I took your side and you took mine. Are we even now?" he clarified.

"Oh. Yeah I guess so. Can I ask you something when we get to our dorm room? It's kinda personal…" I mumbled.

Shuhei shrugged. "Sure. Ask me anything!" he replied.

"Oh, listen they're gonna talk in private! I wonder what else they're gonna do while they're alone. All by themselves, where no one can see them," Renji teased.

"I thought I told you to shut up!" I punched his arm. "And what about you and Rukia? Don't you like her?"

"Uh, um no! Of course not!" Renji lied, and scratched the back of his neck.

"That's what I thought!" I remarked. "Shuhei I'll meet you up there, kay? You go on ahead. I have to uh…go look at something."

I walked away from the others, a little frustrated and embarrassed. Why was I embarrassed? I sat down under a tree in the grass and thought about it. Was it because I was starting to like Shuhei more? I shook my head in denial. That couldn't be it. But what if it was true? I kept telling myself to stop arguing about it in my own mind.

I took a liking to the spot I sat in, and layed back to become more comfortable. I tried to get all these thoughts about Shuhei out of my mind. I felt like my head was going to explode. I calmed down and started to relax after a while, becoming too at home, and started drifting off into a deep sleep.

ββββββββ

The clouds were moving at a nice steady pace. I sat there by the tree with Shuhei, holding his hand. I couldn't help to notice that for some reason all of the leaves on the tree were missing. But I didn't care; all I cared about was spending time with Shuhei.

"The sky looks nice tonight," he said calmly. "It's beautiful, don't you think?"

"Yeah. I love the stars. They make me think of my friends," I answered with the same voice as him.

"Ahh. How so?" he asked, moving his arm around my shoulder like he always does, and I laid my head on his chest.

"They're all so bright, staying together and never getting any farther apart. I could think of them being together forever 'til the end," I smiled and pointed up at two stars that were close together. "You see those stars? Those stars are us."

"Yes they are. They're the closest of friends; they will always stick together, no matter what happens. You know what else those stars are?"

"No. What are they?" I asked a bit confused. "Are they married?" I laughed.

"Ha ha no, but they're close to that. You know what that is?" he looked into my eyes.

"Um, let me think. Are they engaged?" I felt dumb asking him these questions.

"No again. But you're closer this time. Let me ask you this. What are people before they get engaged?" he waited patiently for me to answer.

"Boyfriend and girlfriend?" I guessed. "Nevermind, I don't know the answer." I sighed.

"No no no, you got it right!" he told me proudly. "And those stars are us, so what are we?"

"A couple! Right?" I questioned, feeling like I was the stupidest person in Soul Society.

"Yes, exactly," he sat me up. "I'm proud of you!" he looked into my eyes again and moved a strand of hair out of my face, keeping the palm of his hand on my cheek.

I looked back into his eyes, seeing happiness and passion…and a twinkle. I slowly leaned in closer, to see him doing the same. I closed my eyes and waited for our lips to touch. I don't know what happened, but it never happened. I opened my eyes to see what stopped him, feeling a bit sleepy.

"What's wrong?" I said to no one but myself. Shuhei was nowhere to be seen. I felt confused and lost sitting under a tree by myself.

I looked up to find the two stars again, but this time there were leaves on the tree. I thought, _I must be seeing things._ Then I heard footsteps coming closer to my position, and my name being called from a familiar voice.

I got up and brushed off my uniform and walked towards the voice, a little unbalanced. Everything was quiet, and I was alone in the dark probably hearing things.

After a few minutes of wandering around, I found myself falling down after tripping over my own foot. I felt arms grab me and bring me back to my feet. The grips from whose ever arms were holding me felt familiar and comforting. Where did I recognize this from?

"Izume! What happened to you? You look dazed and confused. Are you alright?" I looked up to see my Shuhei there and I hugged him out of joy. "Did I miss something?"

"What do you mean what happened to me? You were there! And then you decided to disappear on me!" I cried with disbelief.

"What are you talking about? You told me you'd meet me up at our dorm, but you never showed up. So I came to look for you…" Shuhei whispered.

"Huh? But-," he cut me off again.

"Oh, I see. You must've fallen asleep out here. Come on, let's get to the dorms so you can get some rest. Or are you too tired to walk?" he kept holding me up, one arm around my waist and one on my shoulder.

I felt myself yawn, almost stumbling back down to the ground, where I felt myself get caught and hefted onto Shuhei's back.

"S-sorry about that," I muttered, "I'm a little sleepy still."

I looked up at the sky, to see two stars right next to each other. I remembered what must've been a dream and smiled. My mind was clear now, and I didn't have to worry about feeling embarrassed around Shuhei. Things were going to be different from now on.


	11. A Visit to My Best Friend

**Chapter 11- A Visit to My Best Friend**

A few days later, we received our exam results. I was happy to know that I passed, but was a little depressed to see how Shuhei did.

"Oh nooo..." I whispered. "I'm sorry Shuhei. It'll be alright, you'll do better next time! I'm sure of it!"

I kept trying to do whatever I could to cheer him up, but it was hopeless because I couldn't even get myself to cheer up after seeing his results. I didn't have long to talk to him since I was being transferred to my new squad.

"Hey, what did you want to ask me at the dorms the other night? I know you don't have long to talk, and it seemed important at the time," he asked like we were parting ways forever.

"Oh, it's nothing!" I blushed. I regretted saying that to him because it was a lie, and I never ever wanted to lie to him. "I mean…I wanted to a-ask you if the others were r-right." I stuttered.

"Right about what?" he responded with another question.

"Right about you "liking" me…" I mumbled.

This question must've caught him off guard because there was a pause before he started to say anything. This very moment seemed so intense, it was like everyone and everything around us was blurred. Maybe I shouldn't have even bothered to ask.

"Well, I'm not sure how to explain this…" he finally broke the silence and looked down then back up at me.

This was probably the biggest chance I was ever going to take. If I got it right, then things were going to be fine. But if I was wrong…then I might lose my most important friend forever. I was running out of time.

"Hmm, maybe this will help," I suggested as I put my hand under his jaw and gave him a quick kiss on the lips then moved away, feeling both ashamed and extremely embarrassed. He looked at me like I was crazy, then the unexpected happened.

ββββββββ

I made my way over to the Squad Six building, dressed in the standard soul reaper apparel. I was officially now what I dreamt of being. I just have to wait for Shuhei and the others to graduate, hoping Shuhei will do much better on the next entrance exam.

Once I got into the Squad Six building I was escorted to a room outside the Captain's Quarters to be introduced to my Captain, Captain Byakuya Kuchiki. I couldn't believe that my Captain was the head of the Kuchiki clan, one of the four noble families. He came out and saw me sitting on the floor.

"And who might you be?" he asked me.

I answered with honor. "I am Third Seat Izume Shiba sir! W-wait a second! You don't remember me?" I thought back to the times I've been into the sereitei and visited him after meeting Yoruichi Shihoin.

"You were that Academy student who came into my house with Yoruichi Shihoin," he talked with his calm arrogant voice. "I have work to do, so if you would leave and go bring your foolishness elsewhere, I'd appreciate it." He started walking away.

"Yes little Byakuya!" I giggled and teased as I immediately flash stepped outside. Well now what was I supposed to do? There wasn't anyone else to bother, or anyone that I knew that I could hang out with. I sighed and laid down on the grass and stared at the sky. _I wish I could've stayed at the academy with Shuhei, _I thought. Come to think of it, I was starting to really miss him.

A flashback started to play in my head. It was the time when I was speaking to Shuhei before I left to come to my new squad. I remembered everything, the question I asked him, that one chance I took, and the one thing that meant a lot to me. And that special thing was the kiss Shuhei gave me in return for mine, except his had more feeling to it. I wonder what would become of us.

ββββββββ

On my free time, I decided to go visit the Academy. When I got there and found Shuhei, I knew instantly that he took the exam again. And failed. I took him into the hallway to talk.

"Come on, Shuhei! This is the second time! What happened?" I wondered. "You seem like you're giving up on this!"

"I'm sorry, Izume. It's just it's been so different here ever since you left…" he whispered apologetically. "People haven't been so nice, and they think that something happened between us. What should I do?"

"Well, for one you should try to cheer up. And another thing is nothing happened between us, other than what we did before I had to leave. And I have a way to get them to stop." I grinned mischievously.

"What's your idea?" he asked. "I hope it'll work."

"Oh it WILL. I guarantee it. Ok so listen up, sweetie, I'll come by and visit you on my free time, okay?" I explained. "And we gotta make it all seem like nothing ever happened, and I'll do whatever I can to help you."

"O-okay but why are you talking like that?" he seemed surprised.

"Oh, I don't know. I just thought it would help with our relationship…" I think I said too much. Shuhei could say about the same.

"I haven't heard anyone say anything like that," he told me, "and I guess it can help…"

"I'll just not talk like that," I talked with a loving but apologetic tone. "I have to go soon, Captain Kuchiki wanted me to stay at the squad building. He doesn't know that I'm even here."

I lied. He soon found out I was there when he passed through the hallway we were in, and I was struck with shock at why he was here. He gave me an angry glance as he walked past us.

Shuhei gave me a friendly hug before whispering to me that I should go reason with him about why I was here. I nodded and looked at Captain Kuchiki, who was even angrier at me than before. I was released from the hug and whispered good-bye to Shuhei with a depressing look and followed my Captain down the hall and into a room where we were unseen by the students.

"My apologies Captain! It won't happen again. I beg your forgiveness," I muttered. "If you just listen I can-"

"I thought I told you to stay at the Squad building. What are you doing here, disobeying my orders?" he demanded with his usual calm voice, which made it seem more scary and threatening.

"I-I'm sorry. I was visiting my uh, boyfriend? I just needed to check on how he was doing…" I explained. "And I'm really hoping my punishment won't be too harsh, sir."

"You shouldn't worry about things like love and relationships. Get back to the squad building right away," he ordered.

"Yes, Captain sir!" I started to walk out the door when I saw Rukia enter the room. I wondered what Captain Kuchiki wanted with her, as I went down the hall to return to my squad building.


	12. Highlight of My Day

**Chapter 12- Highlight of My Day**

I waited a couple days before visiting Shuhei at the academy again. This time I left a note saying where I was going, which was probably not such a good idea due to the fact that Captain Kuchiki prohibited me from going there again. But I left anyways.

I walked through the hallways during the students' free time. Shuhei seemed to have been somewhere else at the time because I couldn't find him. I walked up to the nearest student to me, who seemed to be interested in who I was.

"Hey, do you know where Shuhei Hisagi is?" I asked him a little desperately.

"Who are you?" he anwered with another question.

"His girlfriend…I really need to know where he is, can you please tell me if you know where he is? I'll do anything!" I begged.

"Anything huh? Come by here tomorrow with some food and I'll be happy to tell you where he is!" he demanded.

"Yeah, sure. Where is he?" I almost screamed.

"He's talking with the Head Captain. I heard he's finally passing the entrance exam. I feel bad for you," he explained, "because he ain't as smart as you think. Go down the hall and to your left. They should be in the room to your right."

I had the thought of slapping the guy for saying Shuhei isn't smart, but held it back and ran towards where he said they were. "Thanks kid!"

I ran down the hallway as fast as I could, trying to avoid bumping into any students. Was it me or did the hallway seem extremely long? I kept running, out of breath, and turned left to find the room on the right. As I reached the door I slowed down and stood in front of the door, not knowing if I should knock or just walk in. I had to do one of them, so I decided it would be best to knock just in case. I lifted my fist up to knock and hesitated a little. I took a deep breath and was about to knock when I felt arms wrap around my waist from behind.

"What are you doing over here? Shouldn't you be at your squad barracks like Captain Kuchiki told you? You're such the naughty type, always causing trouble!" Shuhei smiled.

I laughed and twisted around so I was facing him, his arms still around my waist, and gave him a nice hug.

"So how's it going here?" I asked, "I heard you took the exam again." I kept my grip around him.

"You don't know the half of it. I'm finally free of this place! Isn't that good news?" he cheered.

We both released our arms until we were holding hands, with big grins on our faces. I couldn't hold in my happiness.

"Oh my god! I'm so proud of you! That's just great! What squad are you in? I bet it's a good one!" I shouted.

"I'm in Squad 9," he answered with a little chuckle. "Maybe someday we'll be Captains. What do you think?"

"That might be a little hard…but I'm willing to give it a try!" I smiled with my best smile. He returned the favor. "So when are you leaving here? I'll go with you!"

"I'm ready to go now. Are you sure you want to come? Didn't Captain Kuchiki give you anything to do?"

"Nope, I just left a note and came over here. And I'm sure it'll be fine if I go with you, it won't be that long."

βββββββββ

A couple years passed, and Izuru, Renji, and Momo graduated from the Academy and joined the Thirteen Court Guard Squads. All were assigned to the fifth Squad. They served under the command of Captain Aizen, the one I remember as the murderer of those Captains and Lieutenants on that night from my childhood. Then there was the Lieutenant, Gin Ichimaru. He was there with Captain Aizen on that night.

As the years went by, Izuru was transferred to Squad 4, Renji to Squad 11. Momo kept her spot and I was still 3rd seat of Squad 6. We hung out with each other as much as we could, between all of the work and jobs we carried out from our Captains.

Later, Izuru was again assigned to a different Squad. His new Captain was the Captain of Squad 3, Gin Ichimaru, who was promoted shortly before. Izuru seemed to bond well with Captain Ichimaru, as they were always found together.

I soon found my answer to what Captain Kuchiki wanted with Rukia. It turns out that he adopted her into the Kuchiki clan, and she was appointed into Squad 13, with Captain Ukitake and Lieutenant Kaien Shiba.


	13. That Night I Lost an Important Friend

**Chapter 13- That Night I Lost an Important Friend**

Sadly, due to all of our squad work, we couldn't hang out as much. I guess you can say it sort of decreased my relationship with Shuhei. Now it just seemed like we were just best friends again. I couldn't do anything with him today because I was going to train with Lieutenant Kaien and Rukia somewhere out in the districts.

I really enjoyed being around Lieutenant Kaien. He was real nice, and treated me like family. His personality interested me, and I thought it funny that we had the same last name. I don't think we're related at all.

We were out in the field where we trained. I would remember this place well so I can train here with my friends in the future. I sat and watched as Lieutenant Kaien and Rukia parried. It was interesting to watch their fighting styles. Rukia was soon distracted and her sword was flung out of her hand. Me and Lieutenant Kaien had the same confused expression on our faces.

"Hmm?" Kaien asked. "What's wrong Rukia?"

Rukia's stomach growled soon after he asked her that question, and a "just-found-out" smile appeared on Kaien's face. I laughed.

"So you're hungry aren't ya?" Kaien asked, "Why didn't you say so?"

"It's n-not that..." Rukia mumbled. "I just got a little distracted.

We all sat down to eat our food, Kaien getting rice all over his face. I giggled and just ate my food, while Rukia plainly stared at hers. I wondered what she was thinking.

They started to talk about something but I wasn't paying any attention to them. I caught a couple words and phrases like "Never die alone" and "heart". This is when I decided to tag along and listen to what Lieutenant Kaien was saying.

He talked for quite some time now. It was something that I would want to remember for the rest of my life. It went something like this: "In my opinion a heart is a state of mind, not inside our bodies at all. I think that a heart is created between people when they meet for the first time, a bond that's brought to life between individuals. It's an emotional connection. When you think about someone or care about someone that is where your heart is born. If you were the only person who existed in this world, your heart would have no way of forming so it just wouldn't be anywhere. If you believe with all of your heart that you belong here, then this is where you'll stay. If your heart is here, then that's all the reason in the world you need to be here. You must never die alone. Our souls are our bodies, and when we die our bodies turn to dust and become the reishi that goes on to form the Soul Society, but where do our hearts go? We entrust our hearts to our friends. If you entrust your heart to your friends, it will continue to live on inside them." I believe that is the most important thing I would learn from Lieutenant Kaien.

βββββββββ

*A few days later*

That night I was with Captain Ukitake, Lieutenant Kaien, and Rukia. Lieutenant Kaien was worried about his wife, who was also a soul reaper. She was out on a mission, and we received news that everyone in her group was wiped out. She was dead, killed by a hollow. This set Kaien out for revenge. He ran off to where her group went and followed after him. We stopped in a tree to find a scary looking hollow in the distance, watching us.

"Captain let me go first," Rukia offered, clutching the hilt of her zanpakutou.

Lieutenant Kaien jumped from the tree in anger, and started to attack the hollow head on. I grimaced in disgust from the blood and gore he was causing.

"Lieutenant!" I heard myself scream. I felt myself jump from the tree to go and help him, and my hand grasp my zanpakutou and unsheathe it from off of my back. "Kaien…."

Captain Ukitake flash-stepped in front of me, and stopped me from helping him. "No, Izume. Let him fight for himself. Remember this well. There are two kinds of battles. As we have put our lives in battles, we must be able to distinguish the two. The fight to protect life and fights to protect pride. In this case, Kaien is fighting to protect his pride. If you interfere now you will destroy his pride."

I nodded and sheathed my zanpakutou. "Sorry Kaien," I whispered.

"You touched my tentacles! The first soul reaper to touch my tentacles at night…gets their zanpakutou destroyed!" the hollow hollered.

At that very moment Kaien's zanpakutou was shattered, and he continued to fight with his bare hands, ripping the tentacles from the hollow's body. No matter how much I wanted to help him, I couldn't. I just had to stand there and watch. I bet Rukia felt the same way.

This was the second worst night I've ever experienced, and the third worst moment I've seen. I felt Kaien's power. It was immense, and overwhelming. His aura was filled with destruction. He was there to kill. I was scared and helpless. He can die at any moment.

Then as we watched, the last thing we would expect occurred. The hollow took over Kaien's body, and charged at us.

"Captain let me fight! Please!" I screamed, once again took hold of my zanpakutou.

But it was too late for me to do anything. I felt an agonizing pain ripple down my back and I was rendered useless. I didn't fall down to the ground, nor feel like my moment of life was over. I couldn't even move an inch of my body. What was happening?

I watched as Captain Ukitake defended us. He was wondering why I wasn't running away. I noticed that Rukia has already fled the area. I kept urging my body to move but it just wouldn't. _Move. Move. Come on and move already! Move!_ Then it felt like I lost all consciousness, and everything went black.

After what was probably minutes, I felt myself regain consciousness. There was an odd mask-like object over my jaw and mouth all the way up to the edge of the bridge of my nose, and the feeling of my body being possessed. I looked around, my blade drawn and coated with blood. My shihakuso was a bit torn. I attempted to move my left arm up to grab the mask, but there was an opposing strength, and a hollowfied voice screaming at me to stop. I fought against it as much as I could and managed to yank the mask off of my face. The possessed feeling leaving my body and I fell to the ground unable to get up.

I turned my head in the direction of where I saw Captain Ukitake, and a stunned Rukia. There in front of Rukia… was a skewered Lieutenant Kaien Shiba. My eyes filled with tears and I started to cry. I knew for a fact that Kaien was no longer with us. He would soon become the reishi that makes up Soul Society. His name was running through my mind, and an aching yelp for Kaien sprang from my mouth. I couldn't save him. I remembered what he told me and Rukia the other day when we were training. Then I realized that he left his heart with all of his friends, I included. And deep inside I would know that I would never forget what a remarkable and talented man he was.

All I had left to figure out was what happened to me earlier, with the strange mask and that strange feeling that dominated over my body. If that mask on my face was a hollow mask and a hollow lies within me…I would be executed…as if I were a hollow myself.


	14. I Meet a Strawberry

**Chapter 14- I Meet a Strawberry**

Years flew by, and Renji was promoted to the Lieutenant of Squad 6, my squad. It felt weird how he surpassed me already. He was promoted at the time when Rukia was sent out to The World of the Living.

"How does it feel being surpassed by a friend?" Renji teased.

"Oh shut up, it doesn't matter maybe I'll be a Captain someday. I don't care that I'm your subordinate!" I replied. "And anyways you are closer to Captain Kuchiki, maybe you can attempt to surpass him. But I doubt that you will." I laughed.

As soon as I finished my sentence a hell butterfly fluttered through the door and I lifted a finger for it to land on it. The message was directly for me, and carried these words through my head: _3__rd__ Seat Izume Shiba report to Squad 13 barracks for an immediate promotion._ I was extremely excited and nearly bolted out the door.

"I'm one step closer!" I shouted at Renji as I ran out the door towards Squad 13's barracks.

Once I got there I was given the Lieutenant's arm badge and a greeting from Captain Ukitake. I was glad it was this squad that I was promoted to. Captain Ukitake then told me that I was to go to The World of the Living to check on how Rukia was doing. I followed orders and headed towards the Senkaimon.

βββββββββ

Now that I was in The World of the Living, I had to find out where Rukia was. I closed my eyes and concentrated on sensing her spiritual pressure. It was close by, and the sun was going down so I had to hurry and find her.

It quickly became dark out and I started to flash step to her location. I found her outside of a house, with a boy with orange hair. There was a hollow outside the house with two children in its grasp. I stayed up in the sky to watch what was happening.

The boy was tall, a high school student by the look of it. I sensed a strong spiritual pressure from him. He went out and taunted the hollow to attack him and release the two girls, who must've been his younger sisters.

The hollow went to attack him, and Rukia jumped in to protect him right at the last second. The hollow bit her shoulder and she shoved it off, with a wound now in its place. She fell to her knees, too injured to fight. She crawled over and sat up against a light post and asked the boy if he wanted to protect his family. He told her he did and then she made him into a substitute soul reaper, which was against the law.

I was about to take out my soul pager to phone in what had happened, when I saw the size of the boy's zanpakutou. It was massive, showing just how much spirit energy he had. He charged in and killed the hollow that was threatening the lives of the children, or him due to his large amount of spirit energy.

βββββββββ

The next day I decided to go talk to Rukia in person. I found her in a gigai in the boy's bedroom. After I entered his room through his window I was about to say something to her when I felt myself get knocked onto the floor.

I looked up at the boy, who looked angered that I came in through his window.

"Who the hell are you and who do you think you are to come in through my window?" he yelled at me.

I got up and dusted off my shihakuso and sighed before I spoke. "Well, I'm the Lieutenant of Squad 13, Izume Shiba. And I didn't think you would mind. Now is knocking someone on the ground any way to greet them?"

"Well it isn't nice just to barge in to someone's house!" he yelled. "I mean was it necessa-"

"What's your name?" I interrupted.

"Ichigo Kurosaki," he replied angrily.

"Your Squad 13's Lieutenant?" I heard Rukia ask.

"Yes, I just got promoted! How's it going Rukia? You haven't gotten into any trouble lately have you?" I asked suspiciously.

"N-no, not at all…uh Lieutenant," she stuttered.

"Good. Because Captain Ukitake told me to come hang with you for a while. So why are you in a gigai?" I grinned.

"Well, I just thought it'd be easier to get around this way," she told me.

We chatted for a while and I started thinking of where I was going to stay. I didn't really plan out everything so I thought that maybe, just possibly Ichigo would let me stay at his house for a while.

"No way!" he shouted. "You can't stay here! Neither of you can!"

"Well that's just too bad!" I pretended to sob. Then I got an idea.

"Hey, Rukia I have a plan," I whispered to her.

I explained what my plan was, and then we headed over to Kisuke Urahara's candy shop. I learned that he was the one who showed up with a dark cloak on the night when all those high ranking soul reapers were killed. We were going to get me a gigai.

Later, we would put my plan in action and I'd be able to get what we both wanted. A place to stay. I'm such a good liar, that this has to work. I just hated the fact that I had to lie to get it.


	15. I Feel Like a Teacher

**Chapter 15- I Feel Like a Teacher**

"W-we're sorry for having to ask so much of you. We just really need a place to stay! I lost my parents just a while back, you see, and me and my cousin were hoping you can give us a hand. We don't have anywhere else to go! I don't know how we're going to get food," I fake sobbed. "Please help!"

Rukia and I each pretended to cry and we hugged each other. I opened an eye to see Ichigo's dad and his little sister Yuzu crying their eyes out.

"Please let them stay Daddy!" Yuzu begged.

"They can stay! I was thinking the same thing!" Ichigo's dad pouted.

I couldn't help but notice that Rukia had an evil grin on her face and was giving Ichigo a thumbs-up. I quickly pulled her hand down and out of sight.

"Don't do that! What if Ichigo's dad saw that? They would know that you're faking it," I whispered to Rukia. "At least they're letting us stay here. By the way, where did you stay last night?"

"His closet," she whispered back to me.

I was shocked and then overheard Ichigo's dad talking to a poster of who must be Ichigo's mother. He was saying that now me and Rukia were his daughters. Was it me or was it that Ichigo had a weird father?

βββββββββ

I had asked Rukia for the truth of what really happened a couple days ago, but all she told me about was the hollow who had attacked Ichigo. So I decided that I was going to have a little fun with her.

"Oh, so you mean you don't know about…THIS?" I took out my container of soul candy that Kisuke Urahara had given me when I got my gigai. I poured out a piece and made Ichigo eat it, which was extremely hard considering the fact that he didn't know much about who I was. Once I got him to swallow it, it got him into his soul reaper form and a mod soul now resided in his body.

Rukia gulped. "I-I had to do it. I couldn't fight the hollow myself," she stuttered.

"Don't worry I'm the only one who knows about what you did," I laughed a little. "I won't tell anyone it happened."

"Wait a sec," Ichigo butted in. "What do you mean by "what she did"?"

"It's nothing don't worry about it," My smile vanished as I went into being serious. "In fact, how much did Rukia explain to you about soul reapers and hollows?"

"Well, pretty much everything I guess," Ichigo replied.

"Don't be so sure about that. You have a lot to learn buddy," I patted his back.

"Don't call me buddy. We're not friends," Ichigo slapped my hand away.

"Aww, how come?" I giggled, moving away from him. "I sense a hollow nearby, and I want to see how strong you are as a substitute soul reaper. Your spiritual pressure is pretty high for a human." I turned to the mod soul in his body. "You stay here."

The mod soul nodded and I pulled him out his window. Rukia followed.

"So do you know what your zanpakutou's name is Ichigo?" I asked, releasing his shihakuso.

"What?" he asked back.

"You have to be kidding me. So that means you don't know shikai either. I'll have to teach you it sometime. Once you get that I can help you a bit with bankai, since I almost mastered mine."

Ichigo looked confused. I kept on walking to where I sensed the hollow and then Rukia tapped my shoulder.

"You almost have bankai? T-that's amazing! And you only just got promoted to Lieutenant!" Rukia smiled. She was a bit admired by me by the look of it. "You're almost like 3rd seat Madarame!"

"EW! Don't compare me to that Squad 11 guy. I'm nothing like him!" I grimaced.

We continued walking until we found the hollow chasing a little boy's soul. I looked over at Ichigo, motioning to him that he should get on with it. He stared back at me like I was some weirdo.

I sighed. "What are you waiting for? Go kill the hollow! If you don't hurry then that little boy will die.

"Why don't you do it? It's your job isn't it?" Ichigo remarked.

"No. I just came here to watch Rukia. That's her job, but since you absorbed all of her soul reaper powers she can't do it." I stated. "So go now before it's too late!"

I watched him carefully as he decided what he was going to do. I stood there waiting and then watched the hollow moving really fast to chase the little boy. Then at last Ichigo went after the hollow.


	16. Defective Candy

**Chapter 16- Defective Candy**

A couple days went by, and I started to think I was a human again. Rukia and I joined Ichigo's High School, Karakura High, and it was quite funny. He was all surprised when he found out we were in his class.

"W-what are you guys doing here?" he shouted.

"We decided to keep watch on you!" I said happily. "You know, since you're now a substitute."

"Oh, right…well can't you guys do all that stuff? I mean it's not my job," he replied angrily.

"Like I said, you stole Rukia's powers and I'm not assigned to take care of the hollows," I remarked, crossing my arms. "So since YOU stole her powers it's now your job."

He started to argue with me when some weird guy came and joined in our conversation.

"Hey Ichigo! Whatcha guys talking about 'powers'? Are you talking about videogames?" he asked obnoxiously.

"Uh…who are you?" I asked a little strangely. "Are you one of Ichigo's friends?"

He looked at me in a way that creeped me out a bit. "Well hello there new girl. My name is Keigo Asano. It's a pleasure to meet such a fine young lady as yourself! What is your name?"

"I-it's Izume. Izume Shiba…..and thanks…" I mumbled.

"Well, Izume, I think that we can be great friends!" I saw him staring down at my shirt and winced.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" I kicked him in the face and he fell on the ground.

"S-so sorry….it won't happen again…" he whimpered.

"Like hell it won't, pervert!" I muttered under my breath. "Stay away from me."

"Don't worry about him. He's always like that," Ichigo told me.

We sat down in our seats for class, which was indeed very boring. The day seemed like it was going to go by very slowly. I wasn't the patient type of person who liked listening to the same person talk all day. I just wished I could get out of here. I wondered why I was so excited for school when I was a little kid.

βββββββββ

Later in the day Rukia's soul pager went off, notifying us that there was a hollow nearby. It was about lunch time at school, so Ichigo was unwilling to leave. We needed him to eat a soul candy. So Rukia took hers out and forced him to eat it.

She told the mod soul to get to class and we were off. I was feeling a strange vibe from it though. We all went to catch the hollow that was located by the park.

"So how many of these hollows are there?" he asked us.

"Who knows? There can be a whole bunch of them. There are new ones created nearly every day," I shrugged.

When we found the hollow, Ichigo was very eager to get rid of it. It was like he was in a hurry to get back to school. Me and Rukia watched as he went after it, me observing his immense strength. I believe he's strong enough to be a Captain of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads.

"Well, now that's taken care of. Let's go back," he sheathed his sword and started running back to the school. We followed.

"What's the rush Ichigo?" me and Rukia asked. "You need to get somewhere so fast?"

"I'm worried about him," he answered, still running.

"Him? You mean the mod soul? I'm sure he's fine. There's nothing to worry about," I sighed. "Soul candy doesn't do anything reckless."

I spoke a little too soon. When we approached the school there was a sound of a girl's scream and the shattering of glass. I gulped and smiled guiltily as we ran faster to the school. Ichigo jumped up through the window, leaving me and Rukia behind to run up the stairs.

When we got up to the room, there were desks on their sides, and a girl who was extremely angered. Then we noticed that there was something up with the soul candy that Rukia gave Ichigo. It was hitting on all the pretty girls. Then he looked at Rukia, and Ichigo. He knew he was in trouble. I saw him make a glance at me, like I wasn't going to do anything to stop him. I saw how he looked at me, which was really weird because it was kind of perverted, but also because he was in Ichigo's body.

"Give me my body back!" Ichigo shouted.

The soul candy made an evil grin and thought of how he can possibly escape. We had him surrounded and there was no way we'd let him get away. Suddenly, he started to attack Ichigo, which must've been weird to the students in the class who can't see him.

We watched them fight for a while, and he managed to escape out the broken window that a desk had flown out of earlier.

"Let's go!" Rukia said and I followed her back out the school and met Ichigo outside to pursue the runaway soul candy.

It took a long time before Ichigo, Rukia, and I caught up to the soul candy. Ichigo and him fought for a while before he decided to make a run for it again. We continued to chase him and then out of nowhere a worm-like hollow appeared. The soul candy went after it and Ichigo followed him towards it.

Me and Rukia were exhausted from running and stayed back to watch what happened. We saw Ichigo kill the hollow, and before the hollow disappeared the soul candy jumped and kicked it and almost fell to the ground from the top of a building. He had a cut on his shoulder. Ichigo grabbed his leg and pulled him back up onto the top of the building.

"Why did you do that?" Ichigo yelled at him. "You didn't have to kick it if it was already dead!"

A couple minutes later a man showed up on top of the building with them. I couldn't see who it was due to the sunlight shining in my eyes. I looked away so I wouldn't become blind. Minutes later Ichigo came back down in his body, holding the soul candy in his hand. He was standing next to Urahara.

"Oh, so that's who that was," I mouthed to myself.

"Well, I better get going now," Urahara said. He took the soul candy and started tossing it up and down as he walked away.

I noticed Rukia go over there and grab it when it was in the air.

"I'll take that," she said. "This doesn't belong to you, and I am very satisfied with my purchase."

Rukia gave Ichigo the mod soul and we realized that school was almost over, so we decided just to head back to Ichigo's house. On the way there Ichigo grunted and put a hand where the soul candy got his shoulder cut.

"You're really feeling it, aren't you?" Rukia asked him.

"Y-yeah," he sighed. "Man I wish there was some way I can make him pay for what he did to my body." He spotted a stuffed animal on the sidewalk. "Say, can you put these in any inanimate object and they'll work?"

"I don't know. No one's ever tried it before," Rukia replied.

"Beats me. Maybe you should try it out," I suggested.

We stopped next to the stuffed animal, which was what looked like a lion, and me and Rukia watched as Ichigo put it in the stuffed animal's mouth. For a while nothing had happened.

"Well, I guess it doesn't work," Ichigo said as he started twirling the stuffed animal.

"Hey! That frickin' hurts!" it shouted.

We were all surprised as it started yelling at Ichigo. It was getting annoying and I couldn't take it, so I picked it up by its ear.

"Shut UP!" I screamed at it. "I've had enough of you yelling! Now see what you did to Ichigo's shoulder? You better apologize before I decide to tape your mouth shut!"

They all stared at me like I was psycho, and everything got all silent. I looked at each of them.

"Uh, did I say something?" I blushed and felt a little awkward.

"N-no…" Ichigo and Rukia answered.

"Somebody likes Ichigo!" the stuffed animal shouted.

"I thought I told you to shut up!" I yelled defensively and then calmed myself down. "Now are you gonna apologize or what?"

We walked home after he apologized, and I stayed silent the whole time. I kept talking to myself real quietly. How can he tell from just what I said? I know he's just my friend…but I didn't give out any hints…so how did he know? We arrived and we sat down on the couch in Ichigo's house, Ichigo's dad attacking him as usual.

"Are you okay Izume?" Rukia asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why?" I responded.

"Well you sure were quiet on the way over here. Is it because of what Kon said?" she asked.

"Kon? You gave it a name?" I asked instead of answering her question.

"Yeah. It's short for mod konpaku," she said.

"Oh. Right. So if I answer your question about if it's what…Kon said, can you keep a secret?" I whispered.

"Of course!" she whispered in return.

"Alright. Well…it is about what he said…and I agree with him," I looked down, disbelieving what I just said.

"It's okay, I won't tell a soul," she smiled at me.


	17. Ghost Hunter

**Chapter 17- Ghost Hunter**

One day we were at school when Keigo came up to us again during lunch. Today must've been something special because everyone was doing some sort of strange laugh and crossing their arms into the shape of an 'x'.

"What's going on here?" I asked.

Keigo gasped. "Whaaa? You don't know? It's only the hit television show that everyone's been waiting for! You can't tell me you haven't seen Don Kanonji's show!"

"Well uhhhh…..sorry to burst your bubble but I have no idea who that is…" I shrugged.

"Then you have to come watch it! It's live here in Karakura Town today!" Keigo urged. "You and Rukia should both come! Will you?"

"Um sure why not? I mean like what is it about?" I asked.

"Don Kanonji is a premiere spiritualist! He can see ghosts!" he yelled.

"Sounds interesting! So what do you say Rukia? Wanna go see it?" I nudged her arm.

"Sure!" she said.

"Hey Ichigo you should come to!" I exclaimed and then saw he wasn't paying attention. "ICHIGO!" I flicked the side of his head.

"Ow! What?" he whined.

"Come with us to Don Kanonji's show tonight. It'll be fun!" I made a huge smile.

"You guys can go," he said.

"Oh come on Ichigo! Don't be a party pooper!" I teased. "Come with us!"

"No. I'm not going," he looked away.

I frowned. "You're no fun, Ichi…you're always so serious I don't get you." I sat on his desk. "How about we make a deal? I'll take care of all the hollows that show up from now on if you come watch with us."

"Sounds good to me," he said like he was annoyed.

"Yay! Thank you!" I jumped off his desk and sat on mine. "So Keigo, what time is it at?"

"It starts at six o' clock. I can come pick you up if you want," Keigo suggested.

"It's fine you don't have to. I'll just walk there with Ichigo and Rukia. I'll meet you there though," I smiled. "I mean if it's fine with him."

βββββββββ

At exactly 5:30 PM we started walking over to the abandoned hospital that Don Kanonji was holding his television show at. Ichigo and his family came along too. Ichigo didn't seem all that excited, and neither did his younger sister Karin. His other sister Yuzu and his dad were all so pumped and excited to go. You could tell by the look on my face that I was a bit excited as well.

When we got to the hospital there were people everywhere. Ichigo, Rukia, and I stood in the back of the crowd away from the rest of his family. Ichigo had his arms crossed and didn't care much about being here. Me and Rukia just stood around not knowing what to do. I walked up to Ichigo and put my hands on his shoulders.

"Why the bored look? You should be happy to be with your friends. Which reminds me…where's Keigo?" I questioned.

"I didn't want to come here. I only came because of what you said and because my family is here. And why do you care about where he is? In fact, you were the one who planted your foot in his face the other day," he explained.

"I don't know. He was the one who asked me and Rukia to come here," I twirled my hair.

The speakers turned on and the sound of the beginning of a TV show started to play. I turned around to see a man dressed in a cape, a hat, and a cane. He was tall and had a moustache on his face. I later learned that he was the man known as Don Kanonji. Could he really see ghosts?

"Bwahahahahahahahahaaaa!" he shouted as he made his arms into an 'x'.

The crowd copied him exactly by laughing and crossing their arms. So that's why the other students at school were doing that. It didn't seem like Ichigo was fond of it, so I decided I wanted to bug him. As Don Kanonji did his laugh-crossed arm-thing, I waited for him to finish and did the same thing when the crowd echoed him. I noticed Rukia was doing the same thing.

"You too?" Ichigo said shockingly. "You're kidding me."

"What? Have a little fun Ichigo," Rukia told him relaxingly.

"Yeah, she's right. You do in fact need a break from all those hollows that kept showing up before," I mentioned.

We continued to watch the show until we noticed that Kanonji started to mess with the hole on the demihollows chest. We three ran forward to the front of the crowd, pushing through all of the people.

"Stop it!" Ichigo yelled.

"You're gonna make it worse!" I helped.

Ichigo jumped over the restraint bar and ran out towards Kanonji. A couple guards ran out and grabbed him. Rukia ran out after him, pulling out her glove to remove his soul from his body. She too was caught. Now, it was my turn. I jumped over to restraint bar and managed to dodge the incoming guards. I pulled out my soul candy, only in time to get tackled by the guards. Now what were we going to do?

I looked up to see Ichigo in his soul form tumble into the hospital. I looked back to where the guards were now panicking due to Ichigo's body going limp. Standing there was Urahara and Mr. Tessai.

"We'll take care of him," Urahara said as Mr. Tessai carried Ichigo's body on his shoulder like a potato sack.

Me and Rukia were released and were put back behind the restraint bars. We watched Ichigo try to stop Kanonji and then there was a loud shriek coming from the demihollow. The demihollow disappeared and seconds later formed as a hollow on the roof of the hospital. It jumped down to ground level.

"Ichigo watch out!" I warned.

I watched as Ichigo started to defend Kanonji from the horrible hollow. He managed to lodge it into the wall of the building, and when the dust cloud cleared it was gone. It must've disappeared into the hospital.

Ichigo then yanked Kanonji inside the hospital building, and I was tempted to follow them inside. The crowd grew quiet and the air was filled with suspense. The announcer for the show was explaining how a strange spirit has brought Kanonji into the hospital.

What was Ichigo planning? They were taking quite a while in there. I was getting a little impatient with what was happening, until I saw them burst out onto the roof. Ichigo continued to fight the hollow, which later spat this gooey mucus stuff at him and pinned him to the side rails. The hollow lunged at him, and it seemed like he needed help so I pulled my soul candy out.

Rukia put a hand on my shoulder. "Don't help him. He can manage on his own."

"Oh I forgot about his pride…" I remembered.

Right before the hollow reached him, Kanonji rushed to his aid by sticking his cane in the hollow's mouth. He started saying some things that I couldn't hear. Then there was an explosion where Ichigo stood and he was freed.

The hollow was soon defeated and Ichigo returned to his body.

"So did you have fun, Ichigo?" I asked him. "That hollow was quite a handful."

"It was a piece of cake," he replied.

"Well I had fun. Thanks for coming!" I slipped my soul candy back into my pocket.


	18. Strawberry vs Bowman

**Chapter 18- Strawberry vs. Bowman**

The day was bright and we were walking home from school. Just me and Ichigo. I walked quietly a little ways behind him, the sun shining in my eyes. There was a slight breeze, it felt nice since it was pretty hot outside. The sides of my skirt rubbing against my thighs, and my hair blowing in the wind. I had to admit this was a really nice day for a walk.

"So," I broke the silence, "nice weather today, don't you think?"

"Yeah," he agreed.

We kept walking and then I heard the beeping of my soul pager. There must be a hollow nearby. I started to sense its presence and got out my soul candy.

"Well, I guess I'll meet you back at your house then," I popped a piece into my mouth and went after the hollow, unsheathing my zanpakutou.

"Okay," Ichigo started walking away, with my gigai following behind.

I wondered where Rukia was. I couldn't find her after school so I didn't know what was going on. I found the hollow nearby, and as I closed in on it I found Rukia running away from it. She tried using kidou on it but it was a failed attempt, for her soul reaper powers haven't returned yet. I hurried down and killed it as fast as I could and sheathed my sword.

"Oi Rukia! Where have you been?" I pondered. "You decide not to walk home with us today?"

"Oh, sorry," she told me. "I had some stuff to take care of with Urahara."

"Oh that's fine. We should probably get back to his house," I suggested.

"Right," she nodded and we started heading back to Ichigo's house.

We were almost there when our soul pagers started going crazy with hollow alerts. They were everywhere in Karakura Town. What's causing all of them to appear like this? It wasn't normal. I tucked my soul pager back into my shihakuso and stepped away from Rukia.

"I don't want to be mean, but I think it'd be best if you just stayed at Ichigo's place. It's dangerous for you since well, you know," I bit my lip. "Sorry,"

"I understand Lieutenant. You go. I'll see you then," she looked a little upset.

I nodded and flash stepped all over the place and took care of as many hollows as I could. What was going on? I kept annihilating all the hollows that were around me. I had to find out what was causing this.

I've killed about maybe ten hollows by the time I reached the park. There I found Ichigo in his soul form, and Uryu, a student from our class. He had a bow made out of reishi in his hand and a bracelet marking the sign of the quincy.

"No way," I murmured.

I flash stepped down to the grass a couple feet away from them. They were surrounded by hollows. I decided to wait and see what they did.

I saw them fight side by side. Something that a soul reaper and a quincy shouldn't do, for they were sworn enemies. They both killed all the surrounding hollows and then I felt an enormous spiritual pressure coming from the sky. I looked over to where I felt it, and there in the rip in the sky, was a menos grande. The biggest type of hollow with an outrageous amount of spiritual pressure. This was a major problem.

"Ichigo!" I yelled. "That's a menos! They are super powerful!"

"Izume? What are you doing here?" he was confused.

"I was wondering why there were so many hollows all of a sudden. And then I find you fighting alongside a quincy," I teased. "What's up with that?"

The menos stepped down onto the ground and I saw Ichigo go charging after it. I thought of telling him to stop, but it was far too late. Ichigo was in the meno's view, and it shot a cero at him. He saw it coming and started to deflect it with his blade. I stood there in astonishment. He's stronger than I expected. He hasn't had any training whatsoever and yet he can withstand a cero shot from a menos.

I almost ran over there to kill the menos myself, but then again the thought of crushing his pride came to mind. I'm sure he'll be fine, but so much of his spiritual pressure is spilling out.

Once the cero was deflected off of his zanpakutou, it was redirected back up towards the menos. The reflected cero inflicted damage on it and the menos started to retreat back to Hueco Mundo. It was gone in a couple of seconds.

I looked over to Ichigo, seeing that he seemed fine, but it must've been hard on his body with all that spiritual pressure he released. I fast-walked over to him to make sure he was fine. I was almost there when I felt a sense of triumph from him.

"Yeah! I won!" he shouted with joy.

"You…won? Won what exactly?" I was yet again confused.

"We were having a contest to see who was better, soul reapers or quincies," Uryu smirked.

"I wasn't asking you," I stuck my tongue out at him. "And if quincies hate soul reapers then why did you help Ichigo? You're in our class at school aren't you?"

"Hey take it easy with the questions. I wasn't helping him. I was only trying to survive. And you're that new girl, Izume, right?" he redirected the questions.

"Yeah. So how long did you know?" I asked.

"How long I knew you were a soul reaper? Ever since you arrived in this world. Same with Rukia," he replied.

Then out of nowhere Ichigo's spiritual pressure became too unstable for his body to handle. He fell on the ground unable to get up. He must be in pain from all this. I knew something was going to happen.

"Ichigo!" I yelled concerned.

I knelt down, placing a hand on the blade of his zanpakutou. The spiritual pressure that was emanating from it was overwhelming. We needed to get rid of all this excess spiritual energy or Ichigo would be in big trouble. Uryu knelt down to feel it too.

"Can you help him?" I asked.

"I can try," he answered.

"Thanks," I stood up.

Uryu put his foot on Ichigo's zanpakutou and got his bow out. He started shooting enormous arrows into the sky. He kept this going for minutes until finally Ichigo was saved.


	19. A Familiar Face

**Chapter 19- A Familiar Face**

It seemed like that there were no breaks from any type of problem. A couple days after we encountered a menos grande, I learned that today, June 17th, was the anniversary of Ichigo's mom's death. It was a nice Thursday morning.

Ichigo and his family were going out for a picnic near his mother's grave. I decided I'll stick with Rukia for the day. She had planned something I never expected.

We met Ichigo on the top of a steep hill while they were on their way to the grave. Rukia smiled and waved at him, and I joined her. It may seem weird to be smiling at him on a day like this. He soon ran up the hill and grabbed us and pulled us into the trees where a path was noticible for us to walk on.

We walked as I listened to what Rukia wanted to tell Ichigo. He didn't seem to be happy about what she was saying.

"Ichigo, what if it's a possibility…that your mom was killed by a hollow?" she asked.

This seemed to upset Ichigo a lot. He went into denial and nearly cried over how she asked him that. I was a bit shocked as well. I mean, why would she ask a question like that? Even if it was true, why? She knew that this would upset him. Ichigo disappeared and I went with Rukia to sit on the edge of the grass, above where the sidewalk was.

"Rukia, why are you always going on about hollows? It's either hollow this or hollow that. He's having a hard enough time and he's been busy dealing with them ever since he got the powers. I didn't make that deal with him just so he would go to that live TV show with us. I made it to give him a break. You should give him one too. He deserves it," I explained.

"I-I'm sorry, I was stupid to even try to ask him that," she said upsettingly.

"Well I shouldn't be the one you should apologize to," I told her.

Then Kon popped out of her backpack and started ranting about that question she asked him.

"Kon shut up! You're making her feel worse than she needs to. We're done talking about it!" I defended.

I followed Rukia and we leant up against a tree. We stood there quietly, listening to the sounds of the birds chirping. Then at the same time we sensed a spiritual pressure close by. He was really close to where we were.

"Show yourself," Rukia demanded.

Seconds later we found ourselves next to a soul reaper who seemed fairly familiar to me. Then it struck me.

"Y-you! I remember you! You're that guy. That guy who sent me to the Soul Society!" I spat out.

"I am?" he took a good look at me. "I'm sorry but I don't think I know you."

"Of course you do! You may not recognize me because I'm older now. When you sent me to the Soul Society I was only 3 years old. My name is Izume Shiba. Now do you remember me?" I blabbered.

"Hmm," he stared at me for a while and took his time to think about it. "Small girl, running away from a hollow?"

"Yeah, and you told me all about hollows and soul reapers," I tried to help him remember.

"Oh yeah! Now I remember you. Have you found your family yet?" he asked me.

"No…I haven't. But I'll find them eventually," I said. "Now why are you here?"

"Hey that's my line!" Rukia shouted.

I apologized and soon learned that he was here to take Rukia back to the Soul Society for the crimes she's done. I didn't expect them to find out so soon. I didn't know what to do. Should I help her or obey the law and let her get arrested? The choice was obvious.

"Rukia let's go. We need to go find Ichigo," I grabbed her arm, but she told me to let go so I did. "R-Rukia what are you planning to do? You don't want to get arrested do you?"

"I wasn't planning on it," she said as she took a fighting stance.

I was a little concerned about her actions. What should I do if she gets arrested? I watched as she tried to defend herself. Then I pulled her backpack off her shoulders and took Kon out of it.

"Go get Ichigo. Tell him Rukia is in trouble and hurry back as soon as possible," I whispered to him.

"R-right away!" he nodded. I let him go on the grass and he ran off.

I watched Rukia defend herself and gripped a soul candy in my palm. I was prepared to do whatever it took to keep her from being arrested.

The moment Ichigo showed up couldn't be better.

"Who are you?" the soul reaper asked him.

"Ichigo Kurosaki," he replied.

"Ichigo don't!" Rukia begged.

"Substitute Soul Reaper," he continued.

I sighed. "Well too late for that, Rukia."

"Rukia are you okay?" he sounded worried.

"Yes, I'm fine," she looked back at the soul reaper.

"Ah, so you're the boy she gave her powers too. Lieutenant Shiba I was surprised you never told anyone about what she did. How come?" the soul reaper asked me.

"Because I didn't want her to get arrested. She only did it to protect his family," I admitted. "Please don't arrest her. If you do I won't have a choice but to stop you."

"You were such a good child up to now. What happened to you? You'd betray the Soul Society just to save Rukia?" he started interrogating me.

"She's my friend. Why wouldn't I help her?" I was about to use a soul candy when Ichigo used Kon's mod soul to substitute his own body.

"I'm sorry but I can't let you arrest her either," Ichigo said like it was a promise.

I watched him draw his own sword and attack the other soul reaper. I watched carefully. Come on Ichigo, don't mess up. I was urged to stop them from fighting when suddenly Rukia's soul pager went off. She looked at the screen then her facial expression almost immediately changed to concern.

"Ichigo! The spiritual pressure is large! And it's near your sisters!" she screamed.

"What?" he asked and we immediately started heading towards his mother's grave where his sisters were.

"Hey, wait! We're not finished here!" said the soul reaper. I realized I didn't have a clue what his name is.

He stepped forward after us but he seemed to not follow us all the way there. We arrived at the scene where his sister Karin was being pinned down by a hollow that everyone knew about. Yuzu was in its grasp, inching towards his mouth.

"I-it can't be…i-is it r-really him? Grand Fisher?" I fell down in disbelief. "He's killed any soul reaper whose tried to kill him. Every single one of them. No one is able to defeat him. Not even up to now."

I kept sitting there and watched as Ichigo started attacking him to save his sisters. Ichigo seemed to be struggling against Grand Fisher. At one point I noticed that Ichigo was about to get injured by him. I jumped to feet to go sacrifice myself, but I wouldn't make it in time since I was in a gigai. At the very last second the soul reaper from before appeared and risked his life for Ichigo. He got stabbed in about what looked like seven different areas. I couldn't imagine how painful that must've been. I wondered why he sacrificed his life for Ichigo.

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT CHAPTER


	20. The Truth is Revealed

**Chapter 20- The Truth is Revealed**

I sat there watching to see what would happen next. The soul reaper who had saved Ichigo's life fell to the ground, drifting into his soul sleep. I got up, dusted off my clothes, and swallowed a soul candy. I jumped over to the soul reaper, who needed to his injuries treated.

"Ichigo do you think you can take care of the hollow? He's really strong but I'm sure you can beat him," I was serious.

"Of course," he replied and he and the hollow disappeared to go fight elsewhere.

"Rukia go with and watch them for me. I will treat his injuries and meet you there as soon as possible. My kidou may not be enough to completely heal him but it's the best I can do," I started using kidou to heal his wounds.

"Right! But why are you saving him after he tried arresting me?" she asked.

"Let's just say that I'm paying him back for saving me from a hollow when I was little. Now go," I ordered.

She nodded and headed off towards Ichigo's spiritual pressure. I knelt down and continued to heal him as much as possible. If I were in Squad 4 this would be an easy job to do, but since I'm not I can't restore his spiritual pressure. I waited until all of his wounds were healed. I took out a paper and a pen from my shihakuso and started writing a note for him. It read: _By the time you wake up I probably won't be around. I have gone to watch Ichigo fight Grand Fisher and I hope that everything will be okay.I healed your injuries as much as I possibly could and now we're even. Thank you for sending me to the Soul Society, because if you didn't, my life would've never changed. I wouldn't of had the strength I have today. Signed, Lieutenant Shiba of Squad 13_

I rushed off to where Rukia was standing. The day grew into night and water started falling from the sky. Ichigo seemed to be struggling against Grand Fisher, and I asked Rukia what had happened. She told me that Grand Fisher did, in fact, kill his mother. This was a fight for him, and no one else. He had to be the one to kill Grand Fisher.

I looked over at Ichigo, who had been badly hurt due to Grand Fisher's fur-like weapon. Grand Fisher had used a lure that looked like what must've been Ichigo's mother. I thought of this as a way of cheating. Ichigo was dazed, just standing there, like he wasn't on this world anymore. Once he snapped out of it he managed to injure Grand Fisher. Grand Fisher was frustrated by this and fled the area, probably back to Hueco Mundo.

"Ichigo! Are you alright?" I asked as Rukia and I dashed over to him.

"I'm fine…" he sounded a bit down.

"It's over now," Rukia said.

βββββββββ

We returned to Ichigo's house that night, all stayed silent. Me and Rukia had thought it was best to leave him alone after what he had learned during his fight with Grand Fisher. I felt bad for him, now that he knew that it was a hollow who had killed his mother right in front of him. Rukia explained to me that Ichigo's mother risked her own life to save his. Up to now Ichigo had thought that it was his fault she died.

I sighed as we lie in our beds. I couldn't imagine how what happened to his mother was similar to how my parents died. We both lost someone important; I don't know whose situation was worse, since I lost my whole family. Just the thought of it brought back memories from my past. Some of those memories played back in my head, over and over again. It was like a tape stuck on rewind, playing, then rewinding again. Tonight must've been one of the worst nights for Ichigo.


	21. Detainment

**Chapter 21- Detainment**

A couple days after the incident with Grand Fisher a new conflict arises. One night we found a note in Ichigo's room from Rukia. We found it shortly after Ichigo had discovered Kon tied up to the toilet in his bathroom. We couldn't understand what it said because it made no sense. Then we realized it must've been some sort of code. Ichigo crossed out all the words necessary and read the rest of it aloud. Rukia was leaving and she must be in danger. Then I felt two recognizable spiritual pressures nearby. I stood up after laying down on Ichigo's bed.

"I'm going after Rukia. Stay here and try to keep yourself hidden. This is a dangerous situation for you," I popped a soul candy into my mouth and dropped the container on his bed. I turned to face the window and was about to jump out when I saw Ichigo take Kon and use him to substitute his own body. "What are you doing? If you're caught they'll kill you!"

"Rukia is my friend. I have to help save her," he said as he jumped out his window.

I jumped out after him. "Ichigo wa-," I cut myself off.

We rushed off to the scene where we found Rukia, Renji, and Captain Kuchiki. I instantly knew that she was going to be arrested.

"Rukia!" I jumped over to her and placed a hand on my zanpakutou.

"Izume? What are you doing here? And why is Ichigo here?" she was shocked.

"I tried to keep him from coming here," I whispered. "And we're here to save you."

Ichigo jumped over to stand next to us, his sword already drawn from off his back. I drew mine as well.

"Lieutenant Shiba, I never expected you to betray us," Renji said. "Step aside and no one will get hurt."

"Sorry Renji, but we can't let that happen," an evil grin appeared on my face. I took a step forward only to see Ichigo charge in and attack Renji. "No Ichigo! He'll kill you!"

They started to fight and I tried to go stop him, only to have Captain Kuchiki grab the sheath of my zanpakutou that I slung over my back like Ichigo's. I immediately stopped to struggle for it was no use against a Captain, especially since I used to be his subordinate.

"You've never changed," Captain Kuchiki told me. "You never really liked to obey orders or follow the rules. Now you've decided to side with a soul reaper who committed an unforgivable crime. You should be ashamed of yourself, Lieutenant."

His spiritual pressure overwhelmed me and I fell to my knees with nothing to say. What should I do? If I fought back against Captain Kuchiki he is likely to kill me for all I've done. But he's talking about his sister like she's a bad person. I can't let him do this to her!

I got up with false bravery, and I knew that this may be the worst and best choice I was going to make today. I wasn't so sure it would work, but it was the best I could do. I turned around and tried to grab Captain Kuchiki's shihakuso only to have him pin me up against a brick wall with so much force that I dropped my zanpakutou. I felt a bit of blood trickle down my chin and drip onto the ground. I understood that he wasn't going to show any pity towards me.

"R-Rukia…you have to run! Go now while you can!" I yelled. I tried to move forward, but I couldn't because Captain Kuchiki held me back. I watched Rukia as she looked at me apologetically and stood her ground. "Rukia please!"

I started to struggle to break free of Captain Kuchiki's grasp, but I was thrown to ground unable to get up. I believe that Captain Kuchiki has no intention of actually killing me, because his true goal was to capture Rukia and leave.

I lie there on the ground, with possible broken bones. I leaned on my elbow to look up, seeing that Renji has badly wounded Ichigo's shoulder with his shikai. I urged myself to get up and help him, but I felt like I lost all control of my body. The next moment I saw Ichigo make a comeback and nearly almost defeat Renji in one blow. Renji was brought down to his knees and Ichigo moved in for a final attack. At the last second I saw Captain Kuchiki flash-step over to Ichigo and slice nearly 75 percent off of his zanpakutou. Ichigo was confused, and that is what brought him to what I thought was his death. Captain Kuchiki had stabbed his soul chain and cancelled his soul sleep. He would no longer have the source of his spiritual pressure.

"Ichigo!" I screamed as he fell to the ground, blood spreading across the pavement. I was practically paralyzed.

Ichigo grabbed Captain Kuchiki's shihakuso from where he lay. Moments later Rukia ran up and kicked his hand off and started yelling at him for grabbing Captain Kuchiki. She told him he should lie there and live a little longer. She said that she would never forgive him if he went after her.

Captain Kuchiki walked up next to me. "Get up Lieutenant," he demanded. "We're leaving.'

"Y-yes Captain," I tried to do as he said, but I was fairly too weakened to get up completely. "I-I'm sorry I c-." he grabbed my shihakuso and pulled me up to my feet.

"Renji open the senkaimon then take this traitor with us," Captain Kuchiki ordered.

"Yes sir," Renji opened the senkaimon and then came to grab me from Captain Kuchiki. Four hell butterflies flew out to accompany us.

I looked back at Ichigo, worried about him as me and Rukia were brought back to the Soul Society. I mouthed a couple words to him as we got farther and farther apart. This is what I mouthed: _Don't worry about me. I'll be fine. I promise that I'll save Rukia, no matter what it takes. Farewell…Ichigo._


	22. The Lair of the Soul Reapers Part 1

**Chapter 22- The Lair of the Soul Reapers Part 1**

I woke up in a prison cell. There was no other reason but for treason. I sat up with a major headache and stretched my arms. Once my vision was focused I got up and walked up to the bars and grabbed two of them.

"Excuse me, can I ask a couple questions?" I didn't know who I was going to talk to but I had to try.

Seconds later a couple guards came over, with some familiar faces. I was shocked. I knew all of them. They all came up to my cell one after the other. There was Captain Ukitake, Momo, Izuru, Renji, and Shuhei. This didn't seem good.

"W-what are all of y-you guys doing here?" I stuttered.

Izuru was the first to speak. "Why did you do this?"

"Do what? I didn't do anything wrong! I was just trying to save a friend…" I mumbled. I felt ashamed.

Next was Momo. "You betrayed us…how come you didn't tell anyone what she did Lieutenant?"

I was too ashamed to say anything. Then Renji spoke. "What happened to you? You went against the law…Captain Kuchiki was right. You never did change."

He made me angry. "Shut up! I don't care that I never changed! Rukia is my friend and I was trying to help her! And what about you? Don't you want to help her? You were her closest friend in the academy right? So why didn't you try to help her? Tell me why, Renji!"

Then Shuhei put his hand on my shoulder. "Calm down Izume! Get a hold of yourself! Do you hear what you're saying?" he looked disappointed.

His expression gave me an automatic reaction. "I'm so sorry Shuhei. I don't know what to do. Can you please help me? I can make things better. I'll stop fighting-," then I remembered my promise to Ichigo.

"I wish I could Izume. But first you must make a promise to me," he looked me in the eyes.

"I will. What do I have to promise you?" I was serious and sad at the same time.

"You have to promise me you'll stay out of trouble once you get out of here," he softly smiled. "Okay?"

"It'll be hard…but I can give it a try," I returned his smile.

After talking with Izuru, Renji, Momo, and Shuhei they all left, except for Captain Ukitake. He must've wanted to talk to me personally about this.

"Lieutenant," he spoke quietly next to the bars, "I know that Rukia is your friend, but Shuhei is right. You do need to stay out of trouble. Try to remember that. I'll come by and talk to you every once in a while if you'd like."

"Sure…but I have a question to ask you Captain," I felt a little better now.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Do you know how long they're planning on keeping me locked up in here?" I wondered.

"They aren't planning on keeping you here for long. You'll be released in a couple days," he told me.

"Okay that's all I needed to know, thanks," I walked back over to where I woke up before and sat down. "See you later Captain Ukitake."

He waved good-bye and went off to our Squad barracks. I was thinking of a way to get out of here without causing too much of a riot, but I couldn't break my promise to Shuhei. Especially not now. Being in here was boring, not much to say that I couldn't do anything. A couple days is too long for me to wait.

βββββββββ

A familiar spiritual pressure showed up somewhere in the rukon districts. I could barely sense it but I knew it was there. I jumped up to my feet and went up to the bars of my cell. I have been in here for 3 days now and I knew that I had to get out of here. I thought_ Ichigo you idiot! Why did you come?_

"Hey! I need some help! Anyone please!" I really hated lying.

Some guards walked up to the bars and asked me what the matter was. I told them that I found some strange liquid on the floor. As they bent down to look where I pointed, I stuck my arms out the bars and elbowed their heads to knock them unconscious. I knelt down and grabbed keys from one of the guards and unlocked my cell.

"Sorry Shuhei," I ran out of my cell and started to look for my zanpakutou. They had to have put it in here somewhere.

I dropped the keys on the floor, and once I found my zanpakutou I ran out of the building. I looked around to make sure I wouldn't get caught and hid once I realized that my escape was noticed.

"Lieutenant Shiba of squad 13 has escaped!" I heard some guards yell. They started searching the area for me, but I suppressed my spiritual pressure and headed towards my Squad barracks.

"This probably isn't a good idea to show up there but I had to find a way not to get in more trouble than I already am," I muttered.

I kept running to my barracks, which were a couple buildings away since now I was closest to Squad 8's barracks. As I was passing through the area where Squad 9's barracks were, I stopped and thought about how I broke a promise. I turned away and was about to flash step towards my barracks when I felt a hand grab my wrist on my right arm. I immediately stopped and looked to see who it was.

"Izume," Shuhei spoke confusedly, "What are you doing here?"

I was shocked and didn't say anything. I just stared at him.

"Did they let you out early?" he asked confusedly.

I shook my head. "No…I'm sorry…I have to stop…Ichigo."

"Who is that?" he wondered.

"He's the substitute soul reaper…and my friend. He's here to save Rukia. I have to save him from getting killed." I gave him a worried look. "I'm so sorry! Please forgive me Shuhei…" A tear rolled down my cheek and I yanked my arm free and left.

I hope he wasn't mad at me too much. He probably hates me now for breaking a promise, and he's probably not going to talk to me anymore. I didn't know which side I was on anymore. Was I with the Thirteen Court Guard Squads or Ichigo? This was like a war between friendships. I couldn't decide and leaned against a wall and pulled my knees to my chest. What should I do?

I closed my eyes not knowing what to do. Then I got up and stared at the sky. I thought _If I were to stop Ichigo maybe it would help the Thirteen Court Guard Squads. If he showed up here they'd eventually have someone sent to kill him, thus causing a war because everyone would want to fight someone as strong as he is. After I stopped him I can save Rukia and everything will be over._ A smile grew on my face.

"Problem solved!" I grinned and gave myself a thumbs-up. I was so happy I thought of that plan that I started dancing.

I was too caught up in my excitement that I didn't notice that Shuhei came after me. He walked up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders.

"What problem?" he whispered in my ear.

He freaked me out so much that (while screaming) I flung my arm behind me and accidentally gave him a bloody nose. I turned around to see him holding his hand over his nose and I all of a sudden wanted to ask what happened between us since we became soul reapers, since we were all alone and this was the only chance I had.

"Sorry!" I pulled a cloth out of my shihakuso and moved his hand to wipe off the blood. When I was done I noticed that he was staring at me the whole entire time with a smile on his face, like everything was back to what it was like in the Academy.

I moved my hand away from his face. "There. It's all better now." I smiled. "Why did you follow me?"

"You were sad, so I wanted to come and talk to you. What's wrong?" he answered with another question.

"Well before I couldn't decide what side I was on, the Court Guard Squads' or Ichigo's. But now I know how to help both sides so the problem is solved," I explained.

"Ohhh so that's why you were dancing?" he chuckled.

"Uh, yeaaah," I blushed. "I have to go."

"Go where?" he asked.

"Save my friends. I'm going to stop Ichigo and save Rukia. They're planning here execution day right? I promised Ichigo I'd save her, but I also have to stay on the same side as the Thirteen Court Guard Squads. That's what I'm going to do. I promise I'll stay out of trouble." I gave him a big hug before I left.


	23. The Lair of the Soul Reapers Part 2

**Chapter 23- The Lair of the Soul Reapers Part 2**

I was standing by the gate to the Rukon district where I believe Ichigo had landed. Now since I was closer to him I could feel that there were three others with him. I recognized them as Uryu, Chad, and Orihime. That just makes it harder for me to stop Ichigo from causing trouble. I had to move fast.

I head out to where I sensed Ichigo's spiritual pressure the most. The people who lived in the district watched me run by. Once I located where Ichigo was I was a little surprised. I found him inside the residence of Kukaku Shiba, Lieutenant Kaien's sister. This was going to be hard.

I approached the door and was about to knock on it when two men came out to ask who I was. I assumed they were guards since Kukaku normally moves her residence every once in a while.

"I-I am Lieutenant Shiba. Of Squad 13 s-sir," I spoke to the man who asked me my name. "I would like to speak with someone who is in here please."

"Stay here a moment," the other man said as he walked inside, probably to get permission from Kukaku.

The other man stayed outside with me and waited for the other to come back. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of my face, for I was very nervous to be here. I haven't really gotten to know Kukaku that well, I've only heard about her from Lieutenant Kaien.

The man who went inside returned and told me to follow him. He and the other man escorted me inside to a basement where I saw Kukaku, Ichigo, Uryu, Chad, Orihime, and this other person whom I did not know.

"So you're the girl who they replaced Kaien with, am I correct?" Kukaku asked me.

"I-I guess so," I looked around to see the surprised faces of those from the World of the Living.

"What does that supposed to mean, 'I guess so'? It's a simple yes or no question," Kukaku remarked. "Why are you here?"

"I have to talk to Ichigo real quick," I waited quietly for a response. "And I'd also like to say that I'm sorry about your brother's death."

"I don't need you to apologize. You were there weren't you? With the soul reaper who killed him?" she asked.

"S-sorry Kukaku…and yes ma'am," I apologized.

She came up and grabbed the top of my head and stared me directly in the eyes. "What did I just tell you about apologizing?"

"I'm sorry! I mean I'm not sorry! I mean I don't know what I mean!" I was intimidated by her.

Kukaku just chuckled and let me go; leaving my hair a bit messed up. "You're alright," she said.

She reminded me so much of Lieutenant Kaien. And then I thought back to when she said that Rukia had killed him. Rukia didn't mean to kill him, and I'm pretty sure that she didn't want to either. I learned that Kukaku must be angered at Rukia, and if I told her that we were trying to save Rukia, she might not like me anymore.

"Ichigo, may I have a word with you for a couple minutes?" I looked towards him.

"Uh, sure," he got up and we walked out into the hall. "What happened to you? You seem different."

"That's 'cause I was put behind bars and I broke out when I sensed you came here. Why did you come here? I told you I'd save her and that's that. You're risking your lives by coming here. The whole Thirteen Court Guard Squads are going to view you as enemies! And how did you get your soul reaper powers back anyways?"

"Well, Urahara helped me out a bit. I came here because Rukia is our friend too, and we want to help. You don't have to do this by yourself," he explained.

"Right. I will help you in any way I can, but I'm probably a traitor for helping you, you know. I don't want to lose my position as a Lieutenant so I will also be obeying my orders as well. I hope you are aware of all the dangers you all are in. I'm pretty sure that Kukaku will help you get into the Sereitei, but this is all I can tell you, because I have my own problems to deal with right now," I told him. "You guys be careful. I have to go convince the Head Captain I'm not a traitor. So I'll see you."

Just as I finished talking to him the door to the room we were in opened and Kukaku and the unknown person came out to talk to me in place of Ichigo. I was a bit confused and I listened to what they had to say.

"You're Izume, right?" Kukaku asked. "And you want to save Rukia?"

"Yes to both. But-," I was interrupted by the unknown person.

"She killed our brother. Why aren't you angry?" he questioned.

"Angry? Why would I be angry?" I was lost. "And who are you?"

"I'm Ganju Shiba. Kukaku's brother. And I'm asking you because Kaien's your brother too," he replied.

"But I don't ever recall being related to any of you guys. I do think that it may seem that way because our last names are the same, but we're not related," I told him. "And you guys all have black hair. Mine is blonde. Our eye colors are different too. There's no way you're my brother and sister ."

"Well she does have a point, sis," Ganju told Kukaku.

"It does make sense…but she is related to us," Kukaku and Ganju started whispering back and forth to each other, Ganju constantly looking at me.

"You know what, I better get going. You guys take care. And if I am related to you guys I will find out," I started walking back up the stairs. "You guys are alright too. Maybe I'll pay a visit to you some other day if that's fine. Take care of Ichigo and his friends for me."

When I reached the door I walked out and immediately started flash stepping towards the Head Captain's barracks, to prove that I'm innocent and will do anything I can to help the Thirteen Court Guard Squads. I will also need to find a way to save Rukia without getting locked up again.

βββββββββ

I managed to convince Head Captain Yamamoto of my innocence, and if I was caught helping the Ryoka (Ichigo and the others) again I would yet again be sentenced to be behind bars. I had no choice but to follow orders, especially since I previously broke out of my cell and they trusted me not to make anymore bad choices. I also have that promise I made to Shuhei.

The ryoka have broken into sereitei. I've heard news that there were five people and a cat. A cat? I don't think it was what I thought, but the cat may be someone I know in person. If I wanted to find out I'd have to go look for them. Their group of five, or six including the cat, was split up so I don't know which one was her. So I might as well go find which one was the right one. But if I were to encounter one of them, I'd have to stop them, but I don't know how because they're my friends.

The search begins soon. I am fully prepared for what I have to do. No matter what happens, there will be challenges. And from those challenges, will be change. I don't know what that change will be, but I will find out.


	24. Search Party

**Chapter 24- Search Party**

I was ordered to search for any of the Ryoka who have entered the Sereitei. I had a few subordinates searching with me, which didn't help me with my own plans. I ordered them to stay within the area of our barracks and search and I'll go on ahead. I stood in the air for a while, trying to sense the strongest spiritual pressure. Once it was found I started to flash step towards it, and before I got there I could tell that Ichigo was fighting against 11th Squad's 3rd Seat, Ikkaku Madarame. Nearby, I sensed Ganju's spiritual pressure, which was somewhat close to Yumichika Ayasegawa's. Uryu and Orihime were fine at the moment, but I couldn't guarantee their safety would last for long. Chad was getting awfully close to Captain Kyoraku. I couldn't tell where the cat was, but I'd eventually run into her.

I approached the scene of where Ichigo and Ikkaku were fighting and suppressed my spiritual pressure so my presence remained unnoticed. I sat on top of a wall and watched. I wanted to see just how strong Ichigo was against a 3rd Seat.

βββββββββ

The battle ended with Ichigo being the victor. He started to use Ikkaku's ointment to heal them both. I was a bit confused by his actions. I jumped down off the wall to greet Ichigo.

"You're strong, Ichigo. But I'm wondering why you're helping an enemy that you've already defeated," I smiled at him. "Let me help you out a little." I pressed my hands over his chest and started using my kidou to heal him.

"Thanks," he looked up at me and smiled. "Won't you get in trouble for helping me?"

"Only if I get caught," I looked around to make sure no one was watching. "That's why I'm trying to hide my spiritual pressure. So I guess Ganju decided to help you?"

"Oh, yeah. When we got in the Serietei everyone was split up. It had to be me that he got stuck with. I don't know where he is now," he said.

"He's fighting 11th Squad's 5th Seat. I've seen him but he's busy running away. He doesn't seem anything like his brother Kaien. He's not brave and as kind as Kaien was," I explained.

"So who's this Kaien that you're talking about? You and Kukaku were talking about him too a couple days ago," he wondered.

"Well, Kaien was 13th Squad's former Lieutenant. I witnessed his death myself, along with Rukia and Captain Ukitake. Ganju and Kukaku think that Rukia killed him on purpose, but she'd never do that. She actually really liked him. From my point of view she actually saved him, but he only died because she was trying to protect herself," I replied.

"So Kaien attacked her?" he asked.

"No. He was possessed by a hollow. I believe the hollow's name was Metastacia, and the hollow went after Rukia with Kaien's body," I started to get a little sad for having to explain this. I really missed Kaien. "He only got possessed because Metastacia killed his wife, and he wanted to avenge her. I wish he were still alive. He treated me like a sister."

"I'm sorry about that. But what did Kukaku tell you before you left her house?" he seemed interested.

"She said that I was their sister, and Kaien was my brother. I don't know how I'm related to them though because I came from the World of the Living. Our last names are the same, but I don't understand why she says I'm related to them," I answered.

"Well you'll find out eventually, right?" Ichigo stood up. "Thanks for healing me."

"Yeah, I guess so. And anytime you need healing, I'll be there for you Ichigo. So I was wondering, you said we weren't friends before…so is that incorrect now?" I moved my hands away from him.

"I said that? Well then I guess I was wrong," he grinned.

"Ok, well you better get going. I can sense some others coming this way. I have to go as well. We'll meet again sometime," I looked around.

"Alright, sounds great! See ya!" he ruffled my hair and started running passed me. I smiled with my teeth and waved as he left, even though it was pointless.

"Good luck," I mouthed and flash stepped away to go find the others who came here.

For a moment I felt glad that Ichigo came here. Then I thought about how much danger he put himself in, but if he's brave enough to come save a friend of his, then I guess we're alike in a way. I've been taking a whole bunch of risks to help Rukia as well, and by helping him I'm even putting my own life on the line.

βββββββββ

The next person I found was Chad. Captain Kyoraku sure gave him some trouble. But since they were fighting I couldn't help him. If I went down there I'd probably distract Chad and cause him to get hurt. I decided I'd hope for the best and move on to the next person.

I jumped from building to building until I came across Uryu and Orihime. Why were they wearing shihakusos? I jumped down in front of them and Uryu was startled and got his bow out.

"Hey! Don't you go aiming that at me! I'm an ally! That's a very dangerous weapon ya know!" I smiled as Uryu put his bow down.

"Izume," he said, "what are you doing here?"

"Seeing how you guys are holding up. The whole entire Sereitei is after you guys. I just healed Ichigo a moment ago," I replied.

"Is Ichigo hurt?" Orihime asked.

"He's fine now. So you won't have to worry about him," I answered happily.

"Okay, that's good," she smiled.

"Aren't you gonna get in trouble for talking to us?" Uryu wondered.

"You know it's funny. Ichigo asked me the same thing. And yes, I will get in trouble…if I get caught," I laughed.

"So shouldn't you be trying to kill us like the rest of the soul reapers?" Uryu asked confusedly.

"Yes, but you guys are my friends. I won't enless there's a good reason for me to. I better get going before they find me. I'll catch you guys some other time." I took a couple steps away.

"Wait," Orihime said, "who else have you contacted before us?"

"Just Ichigo. Chad was busy fighting so I hope he'll be ok. Ganju was being a scaredy cat, so I came straight to find you two. Now I'm off to find the cat," I answered. "Good luck you guys!" I flash stepped onto a building and waved to them.

"Do you think she knows who the cat is?" Orihime whispered to Uryu.

I smiled and ran off, continuing to search for the cat. I wondered where she's been for all these years. Ever since the day she rescued Urahara from the Central 46, she's been missing. And now she's helping Ichigo and them save Rukia. She decided to finally come back. I guess it might be hard for her to return here, being the former Captain of Squad 2 and all. Captain Soi Fon must be angry at her for leaving.


	25. The Sereitei is Our Battleground

**Chapter 25- The Sereitei is Our Battleground**

Many battles have been fought throughout the Soul Society during the past few days. Ichigo fought Squad 11's Captain, Kenpachi Zaraki, and I noticed his spiritual pressure dropped. Captain Zaraki's spiritual pressure also decreased, so Ichigo must've fought hard against him. When I went to go help him he wasn't there.

Uryu fought against Captain Kurotsuchi of Squad 12, and came up victorious. Orihime is doing fine, and Rukia's execution date has been extended a couple of times. I was glad they kept extending it, but something about it didn't seem right.

Later, I received news that Captain Aizen was dead. I was happy to hear that because of what he did in the past, but I pretended that it was a huge problem. It was hard to believe though because of all those mind games he plays. I doubted it up until the point when I saw his body hanging on a wall with a sword pierced through it. There was blood everywhere.

"H-how could this happen? Captain Aizen is…dead? Who could've done such a thing?" I said with the most frightened voice I could. I thought it sounded a bit too suspicious, so hopefully nobody would accuse me of killing him. "This is too much, I can't stand to see this anymore."

I started running away, and once I thought I was out of sight a grin came across my face. If Aizen was really dead he deserved it for all he's done. It's his fault Urahara was banished from the Soul Society in the first place. Then a hand was put on my shoulder and a friend's voice said my name. I turned around and there, standing behind me was Momo.

"Izume, why are you smiling? Why are you avoiding the group? You killed him didn't you?" she asked.

"What? How could you be accusing me? I had nothing to do with his death! I would never kill a Captain. I'm not even strong enough to fight one without bankai, even though I almost have it mastered! I couldn't have killed Aizen!" I defended. "And he deserved it. I've seen him slaughter a whole bunch of high ranked soul reapers before when he was a Lieutenant. This was long before we were at the Academy." I covered my mouth and was disappointed with what I just said.

"H-how could you say that? Captain Aizen would never do such a thing! Why are you doing this Izume? You've done a whole bunch of bad things already. You are unforgivable," she became frustrated at me.

"I swear I didn't kill Aizen! And you know I've never even talked to him once. I barely know him. There's no reason for me to kill him, and he's never done anything to me," I tried convincing her.

"I know how good of a liar you are, Izume. So how do I know if you're telling the truth?" she asked.

"This is the truth! I didn't lay a finger on him. All I can say is that I'm not the one who killed him. And you know what I think, Momo? I think that you should get a grip on yourself. Once you do that, come find me and we'll talk," I flash stepped over to my own barracks and sat outside for a rest.

_Great._ I thought. _Momo's pissed at me and thinks I'm behind Aizen's death.I don't know why she thinks I did it. All of a sudden it's like I'm the bad guy. Something strange is going on and I want to know what it is. It has to be someone from the Thirteen Court Guard Squads who is behind all of this. Was it Aizen? But he's dead…but still…it's a possibility, knowing how intelligent he is._

βββββββββ

Rukia's execution date was changed yet again for the final time. We had one day to prepare for saving her. I had no clue of the whereabouts of the Ryoka, and I needed to find out. Ichigo's spiritual pressure wasn't traceable, and I believe Uryu , Chad, and Ganju were caught. Orihime seemed to be with Captain Zaraki, who's surprisingly still alive after being defeated by Ichigo a couple days ago.

I also learned that Momo had attacked Captain Hitsugaya of 10th Squad, thinking that he was the one who killed him. I figured that out when I heard she mentioned a letter for her, written by Aizen himself. So does she still think I killed him or not? I didn't want to find out.

βββββββββ

It was the day of the execution. When it was almost time all the Squads gathered on Sokyoku Hill, where the Sokyoku was set up and ready to kill. I waited at my barracks for Captain Ukitake before we could leave. It took him quite a while so I decided to go see if he was ok. I was about to knock on his door when it opened and he had some strange equipment with him.

"W-what is that? And what are you doing with it?" I gasped. "Don't tell me you're…"

"We're going to save Rukia," he said . "Let's go."

A smile grew on my face. "Yes Captain!"


	26. Rescue Mission

**Chapter 26- Rescue Mission**

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: HARUE SAKURA BELONGS TO PalmtopOC. Go to her profile to read her story!**

As Captain Ukitake and I headed toward Sokyoku Hill, I listened to his plan carefully. We were going to stop the Sokyoku.

"But how do we stop it? It's too powerful!" I pointed out.

"That's fine. That's why I borrowed this from Yoruichi," he pointed towards the giant object he held in his hands.

"Right," I kept following him.

We were already a bit late so I hoped we made it in time. By the time of our arrival the Sokyoku had its true form and was prepared to attack the suspended Rukia. I flash stepped over to the area that Captain Ukitake told me to and waited for his signal to carry out the plan. I later learned that Captain Kyoraku was helping us too.

The Sokyoku went in for the kill but to my amazement something was there that had stopped it. Captain Kyoraku, Captain Ukitake, and I were surprised. I looked up at where the Sokyoku was stopped and saw Ichigo there with a cape draped over his shoulders. Rukia was shocked at well.

"Ichigo!' I yelled. "We'll take care of the Sokyoku, you get Rukia!"

I saw Captain Ukitake's signal and we burst into action. Out of the object he was holding came some ropes that wrapped around the Sokyoku and I caught the ends on the other side. Then I heard a voice that I recognized, but I rarely ever talked to her.

"Lieutenant Sh-Shiba!," she called, "Wh-what are you doing? Aren't you in enough trouble already?"

I kept holding the ropes. "Lieutenant Harue Sakura? Of Squad 10?" I was too stunned to answer her question.

"What are you thinking?" she asked me.

"I-I…," I started to speak, "I'm saving my friend!"

"What, are you stupid or something?" she yelled.

I sighed. "No, I'm-," I was cut off by a loud noise from above.

In the blink of an eye the Sokyoku was blown to pieces. I looked up and saw Ichigo holding Rukia in his arms. I smiled now knowing that Rukia was safe. I let go of the rope and waited for Ichigo to bring her back down to ground level, but instead he threw her towards Renji.

"ICHIGO!" me, Renji, and Rukia screamed. Rukia screamed as she quickly plummeted down to Renji.

"YOU IDIOT!" I flash stepped up to Ichigo. "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?" I kicked him off of the top of the broken post.

"What if I didn't catch her?" Renji yelled.

I returned to the ground and saw that Ichigo had flash stepped down to his feet next to me. He's made a lot of progress. His spiritual pressure seems to have changed as well. What has he been doing for the past few days?

"Capture them. Don't let them escape," I heard someone say.

A couple Lieutenants including Lieutenant Kotetsu and Lieutenant Omaeda came towards us. I didn't know whether I should run or not.

"Izume, stand back," Ichigo told me as he stabbed his zanpakutou into the ground and fended off the Lieutenants with his bare hands.

I flash stepped away in amazement. _With his bare hands?_ I thought, my mouth half open.

"Renji get away from here," Ichigo told him. "Take Rukia away."

I flash stepped over to Renji. "Shall we go Renji?"

He nodded and we started to runaway with Rukia. We ran as far as we could, and then I sensed a battle was about to begin. It was between Ichigo and Captain Kuchiki. I sensed it and stopped running.

"Izume what's the matter?" Renji asked.

"Captain Kuchiki…" that's all I said.

"Oh, I know I felt it too," he told me. "We need to keep going."

"Right," we continued running for a while.

βββββββββ

Ichigo's battle with Captain Kuchiki was insane. Ichigo had actually forced Byakuya to use his bankai. Other battles had appeared within the Sereitei. It seems that Captain Soi Fon and Yoruichi are off fighting somewhere, Captain Ukitake and Captain Kyoraku are fighting Head Captain Yamamoto, and we found Captain Tosen standing in front of us.

"C-Captain Tosen," I stuttered.

We all stopped and I noticed that we were being surrounded by a strange white thing that soon transported us back to Sokyoku Hill. What was going on?

"Why are we back up here?" I wondered.

Captain Aizen and Captain Ichimaru appeared at the scene and everyone stared at Aizen in disbelief.

"Captain Aizen!"

"Is it really you, Captain Aizen?"

"He's alive?"

Those were all the things I heard when I saw before me the Captain that everyone had thought was dead. I knew that something suspicious was going on behind all the scenes. It was like all of the events that took place in the past couple of days were planned.

After staring at him for a while I blanked out what had happened next. By the time I came back to my senses Aizen was holding Rukia. I was confused and decided just to watch what he was going to do. He said something about the Hogyoku and said that it was implanted in Rukia's soul by Urahara. The next thing he did was strange, for his right arm turned a greenish color, and he somehow safely removed, or extracted, the Hogyoku from Rukia's body. I stared, unable to do anything about this.

Seconds later a hole ripped open in the sky. Preceding from it were a couple of Menos Grande, I'd say there were about seven of them. They started to take Captain Aizen, Captain Ichimaru, and Captain Tosen towards them with these strange rays.

I heard yells from Captain Komamura that were aimed at Captain Tosen. The three Captains who rose through the sky were traitors. What they did was unforgivable and there was no way Head Captain Yamamoto would let them get away with it. The three Captains disappeared into the rip in the sky and everyone was silent.

The betrayal of the three Captains was going to make a huge impact in the Sereitei. Those Captains were looked up to by many people. Shuhei had admired Captain Tosen, and Momo had admired Aizen for many years because of how kind he was before. Izuru was going have to deal with Captain Ichimaru's betrayal as well. This was a whole new mess.

βββββββββ

It's been a couple days since the three Captains left the Soul Society. It seems like peace has finally returned, and Ichigo was rewarded for his actions. I had to talk to him before he left. I met him by the senkaimon just before he was about to leave. Captain Ukitake had given him a badge, that symbolized that he was a substitute soul reaper.

"Ichigo," I started, "I have something to ask you before you leave."

"Alrighty I have something to ask you too," he said.

"Ok, all I wanted to know was…," I got all cheery all of a sudden, "is if that house next to yours is still on sale?" I smiled hugely.

"What? Why?" he asked.

"Oh, nothing. I just wanted to know," I told him.

"Yeah, it should still be for sale. You aren't coming to the World of the Living with us?" he wondered.

"No, not yet. I have some stuff to take care of first. But I'll see you some other time alright?" I smiled and held out a fist.

"Okay, see you then Izume," he touched his fist to mine and off they went.

I waved good-bye to them as they left back to their homes.


	27. Things Went Back to Normal

**Chapter 27- Things Went Back to Normal**

After the Ryoka Invasion there were a lot of buildings that had to be repaired. As a punishment for my betrayal, they made me help reconstruct. It was a lot of hard work since all the battles created nothing but broken walls and messes everywhere. I had to either help build or get rid of all the broken pieces. I had to spend almost two weeks doing this.

I sighed. "This is an awful punishment. How come Renji doesn't have to do this if he broke some of it?" I muttered.

"Because, I was doing my job .You, on the other hand…well you acted on your own," I heard a voice behind me say.

I nearly dropped a heavy piece of wall on my foot and turned around. "Who ever said I was asking you?" I didn't realize it was Renji until I saw him. I scowled. "Jerk. Go away I don't need you bugging me while I'm working."

"Working? You're only doing this 'cause it's a punishment. You _have _to do it," he said irritably.

"What did I just say? Leave me alone…" I picked up the piece of wall that I dropped.

"Oh please, you can at least thank me for helping you save Rukia instead of getting angry at me," he crossed his arms.

"You call helping-at-the-last-second something I should thank you for? That was nothing!" I laughed sarcastically. "Ichigo did most of the work anyways."

"Then you did nothing much either," he pointed out.

"Well I couldn't do much to help him. I had to choose between losing my position and keeping it!" I threw a small chunk of the wall at him, dropping a heavy piece of it on my left foot. "Ow!"

He laughed at my pain while dodging the chunk I threw at him. "Ha! Serves you right." He left me there with a crippled foot.

"Thanks for everything!" I yelled, hands on my feet.

βββββββββ

After two weeks of constant reconstructing I was finally free from work. I decided that I might pay Ichigo a visit, since I said I would visit him sometime before he left a couple weeks ago. But first I had to consult the Head Captain.

It took time to convince him, but my request was approved. I headed towards the senkaimon so I could travel through the Precipice World to the World of the Living. Once I got there I waited for them to open it up for me. A hell butterfly flew next to my shoulder and I was on my way to pay a little visit to Ichigo. He's going to be surprised when he finds out what I have planned.

βββββββββ

Whence I arrived I automatically went to Urahara's shop to pick up my gigai. After picking it up and counting up all the money I saved, I started walking towards Kurosaki Clinic, where Ichigo lived. He would've never guessed what I was about to do.

I pulled my hair up into a ponytail, now that my hair had grown out quite a bit. Then I placed a pair of glasses that you would see a teacher wearing over my eyes and fastened my tie around my neck. Disguising as a lawyer was the best thing to wear if I wanted to pull off looking like an adult. I only looked like I was a high school student.

I finished perfecting my disguise as I approached the house next to Kurosaki Clinic and dialed the number on the for sale sign that was posted out front. I waited for an answer and replied as best I could.

"Hello, I'm Miss Izume Shiba and I'm calling about the house that's for sale next to Kurosaki Clinic," I acted older so I wouldn't get caught.

"Yes, would you like to purchase this house?" the voice asked me.

"Yes, I certainly would like to purchase it," I replied. That may have not been the best thing to say.

"Okay Miss Shiba would you be available to meet an agent at the house?" I heard the voice cough.

"Yes, please. Would they be able to come now?" I asked.

"They are on their way now," they replied, "and we'd like to thank you for your interest in this house. Have a good day ma'am."

"You too. Thanks," I hung up.

I waited out front the house for about fifteen minutes before a car drove up and parked across the street. A man with a black suit and red tie came out and approached me.

"Are you Miss Shiba?" he asked.

"I certainly am," I met him in front of the door and held out my hand for a handshake.

"Hello I am Mr. Masaki it's a pleasure to meet you," he shook my hand.

We talked about the house and all the requirements that I needed to meet in order to purchase it. After signing a bunch of papers the house was mine. I was surprised I even had enough money to get it. After all, it wasn't very hard to persuade him to give me a discount. I just had to save up all the rest of my money for furniture and what not.

I happily walked into the house and took a quick tour of the place. Inside the briefcase I held with me for my disguise I took out a pair of skinny jeans and a white and gray striped t-shirt. I changed into them quickly and ran out the door and over to Ichigo's house.

I knocked on the door and waited patiently outside until Yuzu and Karin came to answer the door.

"Hey, can I talk to Ichigo?" I asked with an innocent smile on my face.

"Sure, knock yourself out," Karin told me.

I walked inside and up to Ichigo's room and decided just to barge in.

"Yo, Ichigo! Have you heard the news?" I walked over and sat in the chair by his desk as he sat up from lying on his bed.

"Izume? Why're you here? And what news?" he wondered.

"Slow down with the questions, geez. I'm here for two reasons. One, because I told you I'd come visit you a couple weeks ago. Two, because I have news to tell you," I explained.

"Well spit it out already," he scratched the back of his head.

"The house next door was sold. You wanna know who bought it?" I spun around in the chair a couple of times before he answered.

"I don't care. That's not really news," he said. "Stop spinning around."

"No, spinning around is fun! And you wouldn't believe who bought the house! Really you wouldn't!" I tried to get him to ask who bought it.

"I wouldn't even believe it if Don Kanonji bought it," he stopped the chair from spinning with his hand.

"That's because he didn't buy it," I was getting too impatient and decided to tell him. "I bought it." I removed his hand from the chair and started spinning again.

"Nuh uh. You couldn't have bought it," he denied.

"Oh, really? I couldn't have?" I pulled out my copy of the contract and showed it to him.

"What's that? A fake? You could've just printed it out and signed it," he said and stopped the chair again.

"Nope," I sighed. "What about this?" I pulled out the key to it and dropped it on his lap. "Is this proof enough for you?"

"This could be any key," he gave the key back to me.

"Okay then what other proof can I give you?" I asked, getting out of the chair and sitting next to him.

"Dial the number that was on the 'for sale' sign and let me talk to them," he held out his hand for my phone.

"Fine," I redialed the number and handed him the phone.

He asked about the house and I waited with an I-told-you-so grin spread across my face. Once he finished talking to them he hung up and placed the phone on the other side of him on his bed.

"Soooo what did they say?" I asked.

"They say some lawyer named Miss Shiba bought the place," he told me.

"Yeah, that's meeeee!" I pointed at myself with my thumb.

"You don't look like a lawyer to me. Like you could ever be one anyways," he looked away from me.

"You don't know that! You also don't know that I have mad skills with disguises," I crossed my arms.

"Yeah sure whatever," he lay back in his bed.

"Aren't you happy to see me? You haven't smiled once since I got here…" I spat out, uncrossing my arms.

"Sure I am. Thanks for visiting," he said.

"You're pathetic," I sighed then said quieter as I turned away from him, "I bet you'd smile if Rukia were here."

"What?" he sat up and put his hand on my shoulder to have me face him again.

"You heard me," I snickered.

"Tell me what you said!" he demanded.

"Bite me," I evilly grinned at him.

"You little!" he started giving me a noogie.

"Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Stoooooop! You're gonna make my head explode!" I screamed clenching his wrist, trying to make him stop.

"Good, you better tell me what you said and I'll stop," he told me.

"I didn't say anything! It was nothing I swear!" I lied.

"Tell me!" he was pissed.

"Never!" I yelled like they did in movies.

Then we heard his room door open and his dad and Yuzu came in and we stared at them, Ichigo stopped giving me a noogie but his fist was still on my head and my hands still grasping his wrist.

"Well this is strange…" I whispered so only Ichigo could hear it.

**TO BE CONTINUED**


	28. Misunderstanding

**Chapter 28- Misunderstanding**

Ichigo still had his fist on my head and my hands were grabbing his wrist to remove it when Ichigo's dad and Yuzu barged in. Ichigo had stopped giving me a noogie and we both stared up at them.

"Well this is strange…" I whispered so only Ichigo could hear.

"Is this any way to treat her after she came back to visit you?" Yuzu asked.

"I thought you would be happy to see her, and you're in here for ten minutes and you're already beating on her?" his dad wondered.

"Not exactly," I wore an innocent smile on my face and held up a finger. "You see, I know for a fact that guys only pick on girls when they 'like' them." I pulled Ichigo's fist off my head.

"That's not it at all!" Ichigo yelled.

"Aww that's so cute!" Yuzu and his dad said almost perfectly in sync.

I smiled with my teeth and giggled as I walked up to his dad and whispered in his ear, "Don't listen to him, he's in the denial stage. He's just afraid to admit he likes me."

I aimed an evil smile at Ichigo, who seemed more pissed off at me for teasing him and embarrassing him in front of his dad and his sister. I went back over and sat back on his bed and leaned back.

"Come on Ichigo, face the truth and admit it. You _like_ me, don't you?" I teased.

"I do not!" he yelled defensively.

"Stop being mean to your girlfriend Ichigo," his dad helped me tease him.

"She's not my girlfriend!" he stood up. "Izume, maybe it's time for you to go."

"He's right, I should probably get going, even though I don't have anywhere to stay for the night," I acted a bit upset.

"Izume, how about you stay with us?" Yuzu asked.

"Well I wouldn't want to be a burden to you guys," I lied.

"Daddy can Izume stay here with us?" she pulled at Ichigo's dad's arm.

"Of course she can! She can stay with us as long as she needs to," he answered.

I sat up and smiled. "Thanks so much for letting me stay with you guys! I appreciate your help."

"We'll leave you two guys to talk now. Have fun!" Yuzu and their dad left.

I snuck another evil grin towards Ichigo once they were gone. He punched my arm.

"Don't you have your house to stay in?" he asked angrily.

"I don't have any furniture yet," I stuck my tongue out at him while rubbing my arm where he punched me. "So until then I decided I'll stay here! And by the way you got so much stronger since you went to the Soul Society. That punch hurt more than it used to."

"You deserved it," he scowled.

"I know but it's not my fault I'm so attractive that you like me," I half smiled, waiting for him to punch me again.

"I don't like you," he said.

"But I never heard you say I wasn't attractive so ha!" I laughed evilly.

"Shut up!" he sat back down on his bed.

We spent the rest of the time not talking to each other due to the fact that I made him angry. I was only just joking but I guess he just doesn't like jokes. I wondered what we were going to eat for dinner so I got up to my feet and stretched.

"Well I'll be in the living room area if you need me," I walked over to his door.

"I don't care. Go ahead and leave that means you'll leave me alone," he sighed with relief.

"True. But I can still tell your dad and your sisters about how you like meeee!" I placed one foot outside the door.

"You better not!" he crossed his arms. "Or you're dead."

"Oh dear, I'm so scared!" I pretended. "Big bad Ichigo wants to kill me!" I made a face at him and walked into the living room, not expecting him to follow me.

βββββββββ

I enjoyed staying over for dinner that night, because the curry that Yuzu made for us was delicious. It was probably the best curry I have ever had. Ichigo never spoke one word to me, even though I had stopped bugging him after I left his room.

I had the next few days planned out exactly. I explained to Ichigo and his family that I would be out of the house because I had some important work to take care of. What they didn't know was that I was actually going to pick up my paycheck from Urahara, since I called the Head Captain and got his permission to send my paycheck directly to Urahara's shop. Then I was going to go purchase some furniture and hire some people to help me move it into my house. That would mean I'd need a disguise again.


	29. Getting Started

**Chapter 29- Getting Started**

After waking up from a good night's sleep, I sleepily walked into the kitchen for a nice Saturday breakfast with the Kurosaki family. I yawned and stretched out my arms as they one by one met me there.

"Morning Izume!" Yuzu smiled cheerfully.

"Hey! Morning Yuzu! How's my favorite little child doing this morning?" I returned her smile.

"I'm doing great! Thanks for asking! And how are you?" she asked.

"A bit tired. Is Ichigo up yet?" I wondered.

"He should be down here a in a little bit," she replied.

I nodded. I leaned against the back of the couch and thought of what we had planned to eat. I thought that maybe I should return the favor to Ichigo's dad and cook breakfast for us since he's letting me stay in they're house.

"I think I'll make us some breakfast this morning. It's the least I can do since you guys allowed me to stay here," I walked over to the pantry and skimmed through all their ingredients to see what they had. I also searched the fridge.

"You can cook?" Yuzu asked.

"Uh huh! I'm very good at it. A special friend of mine taught me a whole bunch of recipes," I grabbed all the ingredients and started cooking.

"What are you going to make?" she wondered walking over to watch me.

"It's a secret but I guess I can tell you, but you have to promise me you won't tell anyone, okay?" I smiled.

"Okay!" she nodded.

I bent down and whispered to her, "I'm making a special crepe recipe. When I finish the first one you can taste a little of it and tell what you think if you want to."

She nodded and I continued to cook. "Can you set the table for me?"

"Of course!" she started getting out the plates.

When I was finished cooking I cut off a little piece for Yuzu and let her have a taste. "Well, what do you think?"

"Wow! These are delicious!" she told me.

"Thanks!" I set the plate with all crepes in the middle of the table, along with a bowl of scrambled eggs, and a plate with bacon. Then I poured everyone glasses of orange juice and set them out on the table. As I was setting down the last glass, I saw Ichigo, Karin, and his dad walk into the kitchen and take their seats at the table.

"Wow this all looks so good," Ichigo's dad said.

"It's very delicious!" Yuzu told him.

Me and Yuzu took our seats as well and everyone began stuffing their mouths. By the looks of it everyone seemed to be enjoying the food I made, and I smiled. These were probably the best batch of crepes that I ever made.

"I didn't know you could make these," Ichigo told Yuzu.

"That's because I didn't make them," Yuzu said, "Izume cooked our whole breakfast today." She looked at me and smiled.

"Yep! I was returning the favor to you all, you know, since you're letting me stay here," I grinned. "I'll cook anytime you need me to."

"You did an amazing job!" their dad took another bite.

"Thanks," I continued eating.

"No, thank you. After all you are the one who made us breakfast today," Karin said while still eating.

"No problem," I sipped some orange juice.

We all sat there eating for a couple more minutes, the food only lasted for maybe ten minutes. Were they really that good? I got up and grabbed all the empty bowls and dishes and walked over to the sink and started to wash them.

After I finished and went over to the front door and grabbed the doorknob. "I'll be back by dinner time maybe a bit later."

They all nodded and said their goodbyes as I left and started running to Urahara's shop. Once I got there I accidentally walked in without knocking. It's a shop so I guess it wasn't that big of a deal. For some odd reason it was dark inside and I could hardly see anything. I kept walking around, bumping into a couple things along the way.

"Oi! Urahara! You here anywhere?" I yelled.

I walked into a room and didn't shut the door behind me. Once I was in the middle of the room I heard it shut and turned in a circle, on full guard.

"Who's there?" I asked. "There's no use hiding if I know you're here."

There was a laugh a couple feet behind me and I turned to face it, but it stopped and continued right next to my ear and I jumped away immediately. I failed at an attempt to grab my zanpakutou, forgetting that I was in a gigai.

"Ch," I hissed. "Urahara if that's you, you should cut it out. I have no time for jokes. This is serious!"

The lights turned on super bright, which made it hard to see. I was nearly squinting by the time I saw Urahara sitting cross-legged next to the circular table in the room with that same smile he always has on his face every time I come here. I walked over and sat down on my legs next to him.

"Why do you always do something like that whenever I come here?" I asked him.

"Why shouldn't I? You get scared every time!" he smiled. "You should've seen how you looked just now. You were so scared that you even tried to grab your sword."

"I wasn't scared! I just had my guard up," I explained. "And anyways I'm here to pick up my paycheck."

"What paycheck?" he wondered. "You mean the one I spent just before you got here?"

"What?" I screamed. "You spent…my paycheck?"

"Well it did have my name on the envelope," he said.

"I really needed it…" I grunted. "Jerk."

I put my palm on my face and sighed. Now how was I supposed to get stuff for my house? I couldn't do anything now and I'm broke. I'm probably stuck staying at Ichigo's house longer than I had planned.

I took a deep breath. "What did you spend it on?"

"It's a surprise. I got it for you though. You'll have to thank me later for it. So I heard you bought that house next to Ichigo's place," he asked like he did something good.

"Yeah, but now that you spent all my money I can't get furniture to put in it," I groaned. "That's all I came here for so I better go now. Thanks for nothing Urahara."

I got up angrily and left his shop. _What kind of person just goes and spends some other person's paycheck? He must be stupid or something…And what will I have to thank him for? He seemed a bit too happy about spending my money. What did he do?_ I started walking back to Ichigo's house, not having anything to do anymore. Well now I might have to skip school for a couple days in order to get furniture and stuff.

As I approached my house I remembered that I left the door unlocked overnight I decided to go lock it since I wouldn't be using it for a while. When I got up to the door I realized it was open a crack.

"What the…?" I muttered.

I walked inside and found some workers from some furniture place sitting around drinking coffee and watching TV. I took a look around and there was furniture and decorations everywhere. I ran upstairs and found that there were 3 guest rooms and a master bedroom, and a bathroom in the hallway as well. In the master bedroom, which was obviously my room, there was a brand new king-sized bed with black and white sheets and pillows. There was a nice oak dresser, a desk with a computer, and a flat screen TV on the wall. I walked into the bathroom where there were new towels and decorations that matched.

I ran back downstairs and stared at the workers in amazement, them staring back at me confusedly.

"Who is all this furniture for?" I asked.

"The owner of this house," one of them replied. "Goes by the name of Miss Izume Shiba. You her?"

"Yes I am her. How much do I owe you guys?" I wondered.

"What do you mean you already paid for all of it," another answered.

"Oh, right I must've forgotten," I scratched my head. "Thanks for doing all this."

"You're welcome. Say, aren't you a bit young to have bought this house?" the first worker asked.

"Oh, my parents bought it for me. They're rich you know?" I lied.

"Oh ok," he said, standing up with the rest of them.

All of the workers left after finishing their coffee. As the last man walked out I grabbed his shoulder. "Hey, who asked you to bring all of this stuff here?"

"A man who guys by Mr. Kisuke Urahara," he shrugged my hand off his shoulder and continued walking out the door and leaving with the others.

I stood there and thought, _why did he do this for me? And how did he afford all of this? I'm pretty sure my paycheck wouldn't cover the cost._ I pulled my phone out of pocket and dialed Urahara's number. Once he answered I thanked him with the happiest tone.

"But I paid for some of it myself; your paycheck wouldn't cover it. So you're gonna have to do me a couple of favors," he explained.

I sighed. "Okay whatever…" _Of course I have to do favors for you. You always do nice things to people and expect them to pay you back. Thanks…again._


	30. New Arrivals

**Chapter 30- The New Arrivals**

After staying in my house for a couple weeks, thinking there was going to be peace for a bit longer, I felt an odd and strong spiritual pressure appear in Karakura Town. I haven't felt anything like it before. What was it? I decided to go check it out and placed a soul candy in my mouth. I left towards the strange spiritual pressure as soon as I could and found some dangerous results.

When I arrived at the scene there were bodies of civilians lying on the ground. I must've arrived a bit late. Orihime was knelt down next to Chad who was sprawled on the ground and injured. Then I saw the beings that possessed the strange spiritual pressures. There were two of them. One was small, about the size of a human with what looked like teal colored eyes. He had a strange white object on his head. The other one was huge in size. The only thing they had in common were swords, possibly zanpakutou. What were they?

"What about this one?" the rather big one asked the smaller one. "Is this one of them?" He was pointing at me.

I was confused. I figured they were enemies since they had the appearance of hollows, so I drew my zanpakutou and flash stepped over to Orihime.

"What happened?" I asked her.

"I don't know. Chad is hurt and so is Tatsuki-chan," she pointed over to where Tatsuki lay on the grass.

"You get them out of here and heal them. Did these fellas hurt them?" I pointed my thumb at the strange beings.

"Yes, please help," Orihime nodded.

"Yes," the smaller being answered the bigger one. "She is one of the people who can put up a fight in this town."

I was still confused but took a couple steps toward them. "Who are you? And also, what are you?"

"We are arrancars," the smaller one told me. "And you must be Lieutenant Shiba."

I was shocked. "H-how do you know my name?" I tightened my grip on my zanpakutou.

"Lord Aizen has told us the names of those who can put up a fight in this town," he answered. "Yammy take care of her."

"L-Lord Aizen?" I stuttered. "But I thought that the invasion wasn't supposed to happen 'til later…"

The tall one, apparently Yammy, raised his arm and threw a punch towards me. I quickly jumped out of the way, only to get caught in another one of his blows. I was flung through the air but I regained my composure and flipped over to land on my feet._ He's powerful_, I thought._ I can't be too careful around these guys._ I had no chance against them without using shikai. It's a possibility I might even have to use bankai.

"Eclipse, Tsubasa!" I shouted to release my shikai.

My zanpakutou took the form of a white zanpakutou with a guard the shape of a star. The hilt was red and a chain hung from the end. At the end of the chain was a crescent moon and a sun, the color of gold.

"Aren't you going to draw your sword?" I asked Yammy.

"Don't need to," he told me and aimed a fist towards me, preparing some type of power to shoot at me.

"Ch, alright it's up to you," I said. "But you don't know my zanpakutou's powers."

I rose up my sword and dashed in to attack. I forgot he had whatever power it was prepared to shoot at me, and by the time I remembered it was a bit too late. The orb he shot at me was about to create an impact with me and at the last second I put up my left arm to protect me and I stood my ground as much as I could.

The attack was quite powerful. I decided that I had no choice. I held my zanpakutou upside-down and said the one word that took me forever to achieve.

"Ban-kai!" my zanpakutou exploded into a dust cloud and surrounded me. I felt my shihakuso start to change form.

Once the dust cleared up my bankai was in its full form. I spread my flapped my medium sized wings and pulled the cloth that was tied over my mouth and nose down onto my neck. The ends of the cloth that I wore on my head blew in the shockwave created after my transformation. My zanpakutou didn't have a physical form in bankai. It was both a physical and kidou type in shikai, but bankai limited it to kidou.

I held out my hand as if I were holding a sword and formed my zanpakutou out of its kidou powers. It glowed the colors of red, white, gold, and black. Then once I finished I looked up at Yammy.

"You still want to fight?" I asked him with a slightly depressing, but serious tone.

"Heh, que suerte!" he shouted. "She's a bankai user!" He seemed glad that I used it.

A confident half smile grew on my face and I flash stepped over and swung down on his arm, with no luck in cutting him. He swung his other arm over and attempted to grab me I flash stepped onto the ground and again he swiped at me with his other arm.

"Why won't you keep still?" he seemed annoyed by me flash stepping to avoid his attacks.

"I bet you didn't know that my bankai improves my speed," I started getting a cocky tone in my voice.

I started flash stepping in circles around him, and he started attacking me with those orbs of energy again. I went up and sat on his shoulder.

"Tell me, what is that attack you're so desperately trying to hit me with," I flash stepped back in front of him as he tried to grab me off of his shoulder.

"I hit you with one of my bala already," he said, "they aren't as powerful as a cero, but they are faster."

"But after I used bankai you have failed at hitting me again," I started looking at my nails, acting like I was better than him. "You know, you should release your sword. I don't think you'll stand a chance against me anymore."

"Don't get cocky with me!" he swiped his arm and grabbed me the instant I let my guard down just a little bit.

"Dammit!" I whispered under my breath. _This is what you get for playing with your enemies,_ I thought to myself.

"I finally got you, and don't worry, your death will go unnoticed," he used his other arm and placed it up against my side, gathering a cero.

"Crap!" I squinted my eyes shut, preparing for the pain I was about to endure.

The cero kept growing in size, and I could sense that it was slowly getting more and more powerful. Once I knew it was at its strongest it was sure to severely injure me, or worse, kill me. I waited for him to release it.

Then I sensed its power falter and for a second its power was decreased, but only a little. It was in fact released, and I opened my eyes to see what was going on. I was falling to the ground, Yammy's arm was too.

"What the hell?" I muttered, coughing up a bit of blood as I hit the ground.

The arm and I lay on the ground. I looked up over at Yammy who was angered that his arm was removed from his body. Then next, I saw the one who was responsible for slicing it off. He was in his bankai already, and it made me glad that he showed up.

"You finally made it," I said to him.


	31. Similarities

**Chapter 31- Similarities**

"You finally made it," I said to him. A sarcastic grin grew on my face.

"You having trouble?" he asked me in return.

"Heh, not one bit," I lied. A chunk of the star that symbolized my spiritual pressure broke off from behind me.

"Don't worry, I'll end this," he assured me.

"Oh yeah sure, and don't you worry about me," I said sarcastically. I got up and dusted off my now torn shihakuso which blew in the breeze that showed up out of nowhere. Then I looked at my left arm, which was bleeding from my shoulder down._ Damned stupid cero_, I thought.

I ripped off a bit of my shihakuso and wrapped it around the wound on my shoulder as I noticed Ichigo start to take over my fight with Yammy. _Well, there goes my pride._

The next thing that happened took me by surprise. It felt like a shock went through my body all of a sudden. My field of view started to be blurred with a strange blackness, and I fell to kneeling position and caught myself by reforming my zanpakutou and digging the end into the ground. A white substance started forming over my face, just like it did when I was attacked by Metastacia on that night I witnessed Lieutenant Kaien's death.

"Crap," I muttered and looked over at Ichigo, who seemed frozen in place in front of Yammy. "Ichigo!"

I couldn't help but to notice that that same hollow-like voice came out of my mouth when I talked._ What was happening? _I studied Ichigo's face, noticing that his eyes were being shrouded by black as well._ The same thing must be happening to him._ Yammy went in for another attack. I had to do something…if only I could move.

The next thing I saw was a complete shock. Right before Yammy was about to hit Ichigo, his attack was blocked. I looked to see what stopped it…and saw Urahara and Yoruichi.

"Y-Yoruichi!" I shouted. I remembered that I haven't at all found her in my search when Ichigo and the others were in the Soul Society to help save Rukia. The next time I tried to speak, I couldn't move my mouth.

I watched Urahara take Ichigo's place and fight against Yammy. They fought for quite a while, Urahara pulling a bunch of tricks like usual. I couldn't do nothing but watch.

After a while the shorter arrancar told Yammy it was time to leave. That Ichigo and I were nothing but trash. I grit my teeth at the least. The smaller one opened up some sort of portal, which must've lead back to Hueco Mundo.

"As you say Ulquiorra," Yammy said as they started retreating into it.

_Ulquiorra,_ I thought. _So that's his name._ Those were my last thoughts before I fell unconscious due to the power that was overwhelming me.

βββββββββ

I woke up with a cast type thing on my right hand and wrist and a couple bandages covering my left arm. There was also a bandage covering the left side of my face._ How did I get so many injuries?_ I sat up and looked around to see where I was. I was at…Urahara's shop?

A door opened and a person came in. "I see you've woken up. You must be wondering how you have so many injuries."

"I am. I don't remember how I got these," I held my right hand in my left hand. "I do remember the one on my shoulder though. What happened?"

"You fell down some stairs," he smiled.

"URAHARA!" I punched his arm with my right hand and immediately pulled it back in pain. "OW! THIS IS SERIOUS!"

"Sorry. Well, you see…you hollowfied," Urahara told me, unharmed by my weak attempt to punch him.

"Hollowfied?" I was shocked. "What do you mean?"

"Part of your soul is a hollow version of yourself, and it took control of your body yesterday. It attacked Ulquiorra, who in return gave you all those injuries." He explained.

I put my hand over the bandage on my face. "I don't have a scar here do I?"

"No, you'll recover from all of injuries in no time," he told me. "And there's a way you can keep your hollow-self from taking over your body again."

"Tell me how! I want to stop it!" I shouted. "And what about Ichigo?"

"He's fine," he started, "And if you wanna know how to control your hollow-self I recommend going to this place." He showed me a picture of a warehouse that looked abandoned.

"Why? It doesn't look like anything is there," I pointed out.

"Oh, there is. They will help you out with your hollow-self," he told me.

"Ok I'll go there now then," I stood up.

"You might want to wait for your wounds to heal first, Lieutenant," he put a hand on my shoulder. "Don't push yourself too hard. Go home and rest."

I sighed. "I guess that's true. Well I'll see you later to return your favor for buying me some furniture for my house." I walked over to the door.

"Alright, but before you return the favor I would like to ask you to take care of that hollow power of yours first," he said.

"Sure. Later Urahara," I started walking home.

βββββββββ

It was the next day, and I had gone to school with Ichigo. My injuries had mostly healed, except for my right hand and the wound on my face. I wish I could take this stupid bandage off already. I was getting kind of annoyed by everyone asking me what happened. I had to make up a stupid excuse for it. During lunch, I didn't eat and just hung out with Ichigo. We didn't really talk or anything, Ichigo seemed troubled by something.

"Is there something bugging you?" I broke the silence.

"It's nothing, don't worry about it," he answered.

"Oh please, you've had that same depressing look all day. Don't lie to me Ichigo. If there is something wrong you should tell me. I can help you," I was a little worried.

"I don't think you can," he told me.

"Is it about what happened the other day when the arrancars showed up? We're lucky we're alive. If you didn't show up I would've died. And if Urahara didn't show up you'd be dead. So be thankful for that at least," I crossed my arms.

"It's not that I'm not thankful, it's just that…nevermind," he started walking towards the chalkboard and started writing something.

I sighed._ Oh, Ichigo,_ I thought,_ why do you think Orihime's, Chad's, and my injuries are your fault? I can read all of that from your face._ I heard the door to the classroom open and I looked to see who was there. I would've never of guessed it would be them. Standing in the doorway was Captain Hitsugaya, Renji, Ikkaku, and Yumichika. Ichigo and I had the same surprised expression on our faces._ Why were they here? A mission maybe?_

A moment later Rukia appeared in the window. She came over and talked to Ichigo in a stern voice. Then next I watched her pull out her special glove and force Ichigo into his soul form and take him away, his soulless body being held by Renji.

"What…just happened?" I was lost.

"What happened to you?" Renji asked.

"Arrancars. And something else," I answered. "What brings all you guys here?"

"We're here because of the arrancars," Renji replied. "The Head Captain wanted me to tell you that you're going to stay here with us to help us take care of them."

"Really?" I wondered. "I thought he would've wanted me to return to the Soul Society.

"No, Renji just wanted you to help us. He was assigned to form a group to work on this mission and you're one of the few he picked," Yumichika told me.

"Figures," I leaned up against the chalkboard. "Hey, did Lieutenant Sakura come here too?"

"She got here before we did," Renji said. "You haven't seen her?"

"No I haven't," I shrugged. "But if you guys need a place to stay you're welcome to stay at my house. I have plenty of room."

"What house?" Renji was confused.

"I bought a house just recently," I smiled. "You guys can come walk home with me to see it."

"Where is it?" he asked.

"Next to Ichigo's place," I told him.

βββββββββ

I walked up to the door and unlocked it. Once I opened it I welcomed everyone in and they took a seat on my couch. I told them where everything was and then told them to help themselves with the food and what not while I was gone. I was going to go see if I could find Lieutenant Sakura.


	32. Newcomer

**Chapter 32- Newcomer**

I had been waiting for my wounds to completely heal. Once they were I removed the bandages. Sadly, my wrist would have to take longer to heal than I thought. I have to keep the cast on for another week. I didn't have time to wait for that long before my hollow-self is likely to control my body again. The arrancars showed up earlier than we had predicted.

_Well, I hope I won't have to use my right hand that much, _I thought as I started looking for the warehouse in the picture Urahara gave me. It took quite a while, but as I got closer and closer to it I started to sense some familiar spiritual pressures. _Could it really be them?_ I asked myself in my mind. Once I arrived at the location I threw the large door open and walked in. _Oh, crap I forgot to get out of my gigai…_

"Who're you?" A girl wearing red shouted at me angrily.

"Hiyori, can you show a little more respect to our guest?" A guy with shoulder length blonde hair asked her. He jumped down and put his arm around my shoulder. "What brings a girl like you here?"

"Urahara sent me…" I answered, a bit confused and weirded out.

"Are you a soul reaper?" he asked me.

"Yeah, and you're a former soul reaper right? Shinji Hirako?" I asked him, shrugging his arm off my shoulder.

"Well, how did you know?" he wondered.

"An event that happened a long time ago. It involved Aizen," I answered. "I, uh…have something I would like to ask you."

"You have a hollow power?" he got all serious.

"Yes, but I don't know how to control it. So I was wondering if,"

"We could help you?" he finished my sentence.

I nodded. "Please?"

"We can help you, but we need a favor of you," he crossed his arms.

"Sure, anything," I sounded kind of desperate.

"Bring us Ichigo Kurosaki," he told me.

"Ichigo? Why?" I wondered how he knew Ichigo.

"He's just like us," that's all he said. "If you want help then let's get started."

"Right," I looked for my soul candy and ate one once I found it. After I was done Hiyori came and attacked me with her sword, leaving me barely any time to deflect it with my own.

"Hollowfy," she demanded.

"I don't know how," I pointed out.

"Then I guess I'll have to force you to," she put her hand by her face and formed a mask over her face. It was hollow-like and had a horn on it.

"WH-WHOA! HOW'D YOU DO THAT?" I screamed as she came in and attacked me. Her spiritual pressure grew by the looks of it.

"Shut up and hollowfy!" she continued to attack me, her strength soon overwhelming me.

"I told you that I didn't know how! How do you expect me to do that?" I kept defending myself.

"SHUT UP!" she screamed and kicked me into a pillar.

What was she? She was way more powerful with that mask on her face. Her powers seemed to be hollow-like. There was no way I could do anything if she kept attacking me like this. It didn't feel like she was going to hold back against me. I saw her coming in for another attack and then my vision was quickly covered and black and I lost control over my body. I had no idea what happened next.

When I regained my conscience I was pinned down by all the rest of them, and Shinji's sword was close to my face. What problems were caused now? I guess she forced my hollow-self out of me by attacking me with so much force.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I didn't mean to." I looked over at Hiyori, who seemed frightened by my hollow-self.

"Okay you pass," Shinji said.

"What? What did I pass?" I talked confusedly.

"We only accept you as one of us if you pass, and you passed so welcome," he told me.

"What are you guys?" I asked them as they let me stand up again.

"We're the visoreds, half soul reaper half hollow," Lisa answered.

"So I'm one too?" I scratched my chin.

"Yes," Shinji nodded. "Now, let's start the real training.

ββββββββ

The visoreds had me run on a cross-country exercise equipment thing. I didn't know what this had to do with helping me find out how to control my hollow powers at all.

"Why am I doing this? This is stupid," I was annoyed. They were all lounging around while I did anything. "Aren't you guys supposed to be training me?"

"Well, that's why you're using Hiyori's Super Trainer," Shinji said.

"This thing? It's just exercise equipment!" I kept going even though it was pointless.

"I guess Hiyori didn't explain it to you," he shrugged.

I sighed. _They're no help at all. Why did Urahara send me here? I came here to control my hollow powers and now I'm stuck working out…?_

"Can I just skip to the real training?" I complained.

"Weren't you listening? I said this was the real training," Shinji told me.

"No, it's working out! There's a big difference! I meant I wanted to get to the part where I can control my hollow powers!" I got pissed and threw the thing at Shinji, and it hit his face and gave him a bloody nose. "And you call that a super trainer? It's more like a stupid trainer if you ask me! All it's good for is to use it as a weapon!"

Hiyori came over and slapped me across the face with her sandal. She hit me with so much force that I flew across the room. "It's the Hiyori Super Trainer you baldy!"

I sat up, rubbing my cheek. "Who're you calling baldy? Don't you see the hair on my head or are you blind?" I yelled. "And I don't care what the stupid thing is called it's useless."

I got up and walked over to Shinji and grabbed his neck tie and pulled him up so he was sitting down. "Listen up, I just want to be able to control my hollow powers as soon as possible and you're gonna help me, got it?"

"Alright, calm down," he took my hand off of his tie and got up.

I groaned and waited for his directions. He put his palm in front of my face, which grew a confused expression. "Be careful, and try not to die," he got serious.

"What? What does that mean?" I finished my sentence then everything faded to blackness._ What the heck did he do?_


	33. Newly Gained Power

**Chapter 33- Newly Gained Power**

I regained vision and looked at my surroundings. I was lying on the ground in my inner world. I recognized this place from the time I previously trained with him, my zanpakutou. I stood up quickly and turned around a couple times to find him. Where was he?

"Tsubasa?" I called. "Where are you? Tsubasa?"

Then in the distance I saw a figure walking towards me. It didn't have wings, so it couldn't possibly be Tsubasa. I squinted my eyes to see if I could make out who it was. As it approached, I started to get a better view. It was like I was looking in a mirror, but not like it was a reflection. The person stopped a couple feet in front of me, holding a black sword that's blade rested on her right shoulder. She was my hollow-self by the looks of it. She had a cocky smile on her face.

"Looking for someone?" she asked me. She started lifting the blade up and back down onto her shoulder.

"Where's Tsubasa? And who are you?" I wondered, drawing my zanpakutou out of its sheath. My wrist was slightly in pain from fighting with Hiyori. I winced.

"What do you mean 'where's Tsubasa'? I am Tsubasa," she told me.

"No you're a hollow, aren't you? And Tsubasa is a guy," I corrected her. "What's the name of the blade that you're wielding?"

"You're not listening…I am, Tsubasa! And this sword is me!" she dashed towards me to attack.

I placed a foot behind me for balance and blocked her strike. I pushed her back, but it wasn't enough to keep her out of arms reach since my wrist was killing me. She tried to cut me again, but I back-flipped away. It was a little late of a start to the flip and a cut opened up on my left cheek and blood started dripping from it.

"You're wrong," I said, wiping my cheek with the back of my hand. "And I'm afraid I can't let you win this fight."

"Well that's too bad, this is too easy. You're already losing. Ever since your wrist was broken your ability to fight with a sword decreased," she started acting superior to me. "It's a shame you couldn't be ambidextrous."

"It doesn't matter, I'm going to win no matter what condition I'm in," I denied. I rushed over and took the offensive. "And if my sword –fighting ability is that bad, I'll still use it as much as I can. I have another way to get you anyways."

I took my left hand off the hilt of my sword and pointed two fingers at her. I started murmuring the chant to a kidou spell quietly so she wouldn't hear me.

"Speak up! Nobody can hear what you have to say if you keep mumbling like that," she withdrew her sword and raised it to soon bring it back down on me. As soon as she was about to swing it down I shouted the spell.

"Hadou 33! Sokatsui!" blue fire came from my hand and exploded on contact with my hollow-self. I jumped back a ways, so not to get caught in the explosion myself.

There was smoke everywhere. Saying the spell without the chant would most likely be useless against her even though it was faster, but the longer, more powerful way was to say it with the chant. I needed to get this fight over with as soon as possible.

*In the Real World*

"It's starting," Shinji said. "Hachi, put up a double barrier around the warehouse. And put up one in here as well."

"Yes," Hachi nodded. He put up a barrier the shape of a giant cube around the area where my hollowfying body stood, as well as the warehouse.

"It's my turn to be watching her so let me in first," Lisa started walking over to the barrier, where a small door-sized gap appeared in the barrier where she entered. She drew her zanpakutou and the barrier closed behind her. "Do you have a name?"

My hollowfying body growled at her and they started fighting each other while I fought my own fight inside my soul.

"So how long do you think it will take her?" Hiyori angrily wondered.

"I don't think she'll take as long as you did," Shinji answered. "But it will take her longer than she would normally be able to since her fighting wrist is injured."

*A couple days ago*

I ran through all of Karakura Town, wondering where Lieutenant Sakura could be. I couldn't tell if she was lost or not. It took quite a while, but I eventually found her. I walked up to her and tapped her shoulder. She turned around and looked at me.

"Hiya," I smiled happily and waved at her. "So how come you weren't with Captain Hitsugaya and the others when they came here?"

She gave a simple wave back. "Cause it seemed boring to go to school again. I watched what they did yesterday, and it didn't seem very interesting. I've done that stuff a million times. Plus some of the people seem kind of stupid and agitating... Like that kid with brown hair that wouldn't calm down at all... He seems like a nuisance."

"Oh, ok. And that's Keigo for you," I said. "And what stuff have you done all the time? Oh yeah, and are you looking for a place to stay?"

"Hmm... Probably... It would probably be a problem if I stayed her all the time, seeing as how I'm not very good at this working thing they do here... So yes, yes I am."

"Well, I know a place you can stay at," I acted like I knew of a better place.

"Well that would be a nice thing to know. Where is it?" she asked.

"It's just a couple minutes away. I'm sure you'll like it there. Come on I'll show you where it is!" I started walking towards my house.

"Hmmm…Sounds nice…I'll check it out…Can you show me?" she started walking next to me.

"Yeah, of course! You're fine with having other people there too, right?" I gestured my right arm to match the question. The cast was easily noticeable.

"Not really…" she frowned. "What happened to your arm?"

"Oh, this?" I held my wrist with my left hand. "Some arrancars showed up here earlier this week and one of them broke it. And if you knew the people who were there would it make you more comfortable?"

"Is it the people who came today? Ahh arrancars…I see…" she said.

"Yup," I told her. "I brought them there as well, obviously."

"Mmmm I see…" she kept walking beside me.

We made it to my house a couple minutes later and I opened the door to find the others sitting on the couches as they were before I left to find Lieutenant Sakura. I walked in and held the door open, motioning for her to walk in. As she walked in I shut the door behind her.

"Welcome, to the Shiba household!" I over exaggerated the welcoming.

She started looking around. "Wowwww…How'd you afford this?"

"About 2 month's worth of paychecks and a little help from Urahara. I owe him favors now," I stuck out my tongue.

"Ahh I see. Very nice interior..." she continued looking around.

"So you wanna stay here?" I asked going over and leaning on the couch's arm rest next to Renji.

She grinned. "Sure, why not?"

"Okay, so let's set some rules here. Do your own laundry and clean up after yourselves. That's all I ask of you. Other than this. I have 3 extra bedrooms upstairs who wants one?" I smiled expecting all of them to fight over who gets one and who doesn't. "Oh yeah and I think Captain Hitsugaya should get one so only two rooms are open."

"I want one!" Renji was the first to speak.

"Lieutenant Sakura…!" she called.

"Okay then it's decided. Renji, Lieutenant Sakura, and Captain Hitsugaya get a bedroom," I smiled. "You guys are free to go choose a room. I'll show you which room is mine." I got up and started walking up the stairs, Renji and Lieutenant Sakura following behind me.

"Yay!" she said as she followed me up the stairs. She was inspecting basic things, like the handrail.

"Hey Lieutenant Sakura, would it be okay if I just called you by your first name?" I stopped at the top of the stairs and smiled softly.

She got kind of surprised by my request. "Huh? Oh yaa!" She smiled.

"You can call me Izume. So, friends?" I wondered.

"Sure!" she looked super happy since she didn't have many friends.

"Great!" I put that same smile as the one I gave Shuhei and Izuru when I first met them on my face.

I showed them my bedroom and the other three bedrooms and they picked out the ones they wanted, leaving Captain Hitsugaya with the leftover one. I was glad I could help them all out. I then showed them the guest bathroom, which they all would have to share. I think this would all work out. I just had to check the kitchen for food…

*back to the fight between my hollow-self and I*

I stood there, blood dripping out of my mouth, and the pain in my wrist was excruciating. I was panting; most of my spiritual pressure was expended. I was at the verge of death. I kept my grip on my sword and continued fighting. I couldn't lose. My left arm had blood dripping down the side, and there was blood blinding my left eye.

"You're no good at bankai," my hollow-self told me. "You're done for." She came in for one final attack.

"Whoever said you get to make the final decision? You're no good at bankai yourself!" I managed to laugh. My bankai receded and returned to its shikai state. "Fu…"

" HA! Coming from the one who is nearly dead," she laughed and swung her now physically shaped black Tsubasa at me with all her strength.

I barely dodged it, getting my left palm cut in the process. I flash stepped to the other side of her and ran her through with my sword right after she turned around to face me. She mirrored what I did to her. We both clutched the blades of each other's swords where they came in contact with our bodies, and I watched as mine shattered into pieces.

"Looks like you've lost," my hollow-self sounded triumphant.

"No, it's just the opposite. You don't remember my secret ability do you?" I asked as the image of what she thought was me exploded into dust. I flash stepped behind her once more and repeated what I had done before, making sure I got her in just the right spot.

Her shihakuso, which was the opposite color of my mostly white one, started getting recolored into white, and she started fading away. I watched her as she spoke her last words until the next time I would see her.

"Just remember this one thing for me. If you want to control my power, then make sure you don't ever die," she said as the rest of her remaining body disappeared.

*Real World*

My body was almost completely hollowfied by now. Shinji was the one who was fighting it. The hollowfied areas started cracking and disintegrating as the pieces fell to the ground. The only thing that was left afterward was the mask on my face. I regained control over my body and fell down to my knees, due to the lack of spiritual pressure. The mask then fell on the ground in front of me and didn't break. I picked it up with my remaining strength and stared at it. Then I looked up at Shinji, whose sword now rested on his shoulder.

"So, how do you feel?" he asked me with a half-smile on his face.

"I feel like crap, but I won," I returned his smile.


	34. The Days Go On

**Chapter 34- The Days Go On**

I stayed in this underground place and trained with Hiyori so I can sustain the time I can use my mask. They had me fight her non-stop for a whole week, except for when we ate lunch. Like always, Hiyori continued breaking my mask into pieces. The time I kept my mask on was slowly increasing, seconds at a time. By the time I finished all of my fights with Hiyori, I could keep my mask on for as long as I had wanted. This was great, because I'll be allowed to leave here soon.

"Can I go now?" I complained.

"Not yet," Shinji answered, walking down the stairs.

"But whyyyyyyyy?" I moaned.

"You haven't brought me Ichigo yet," he put his hand on my shoulder. "Don't tell me you forgot about our deal already."

I was confused. "We made a deal?"

"We agreed to help you control your hollow power in exchange for you bringing us Ichigo," he explained. "So you can leave, but I'll be sticking with you until you get Ichigo."

"Ugh," I groaned, "why do you want him so badly?"

"You forgot a lot already," he sighed and scratched the back of the head. "Do I have to tell you twice?"

"No," I made an angry face. "Fine. Let's go get Ichigo right now then."

"If you insist," he started walking back upstairs.

I followed him. "Hey, what time is it?"

"It's the same time school starts. Shall we go visit Ichigo at school?" he told me.

"How do you know all of this? It's kind of creepy…" I shuddered. "What? Do you like…stalk him?"

"Of course not," he denied. "Are you going to answer my question?"

"Okay let's go then," I got impatient. We got upstairs where my gigai sat boredly. Once she saw me a smile grew on her face and she jumped up to meet me.

"Time to go?" she asked me.

"Yes, thank you for taking care of my gigai," I smiled and returned to my gigai. "Okay, Shinji, what's the plan?"

"We need to persuade him to come with us," he said.

βββββββββ

We arrived at the school with our uniforms on, everyone asking why I was late, and wondering why I was with Shinji, except they didn't know his name. The teacher announced him as a transfer student. I took my usual seat next to the window in the desk next to Ichigo's. Shinji was given the seat behind him.

"What are you doing here?" Ichigo asked him.

"Wait wait wait wait waaaaaiiit! You know him?" I asked Ichigo.

"Yeah, he attacked me last night," Ichigo answered.

"What the heck, Shinji? You visited him and didn't tell me? You know I would've gone with you!" I got angry again.

"Well, you were busy training and I didn't want to bug you," he told me.

"So that's what you were doing all of the last week?" Ichigo asked.

"Oh that's a stupid excuse!…and yes, Ichigo, it is what I was doing for the past week. We have something we would like to tell you." I was talking a bit too loud.

Then Mrs. Ochi chucked pieces of chalk at all three of us for talking. We all sat normally and did our class work. I was still mad at Shinji, and when we were working independently I snuck in some faces at him.

"Would you quit that?" he whispered. "You're making us look bad."

"Make me," I whispered back. "I'm only doing this 'cause you didn't take me with you last night."

"Well didn't Hiyori tell you where I was going?" he asked me.

"No, she doesn't tell me anything," I replied.

"Is there something you guys would like to tell the class?" Mrs. Ochi announced.

Shinji stood up. "No, but could we go have a talk in the hall?"

"What are you doing?" I wondered.

"Play along if you don't wanna get in trouble," he said so only I could hear.

I stood up too. "Actually, may I please use the restroom?"

Shinji whispered something to Ichigo and then Ichigo stood up.

"Don't take long," she said and I ran out to the hallway, meeting Ichigo and Shinji there.

I watched Shinji try to talk Ichigo into joining them, I guess he's referring to the Visoreds, and got bored and started twirling my hair. After I while I noticed them walk outside. I followed shortly behind them. We walked for a while and I only payed attention when I saw Ichigo grab Shinji's shirt. I rushed over and grabbed Ichigo's wrist.

"Hey, hey, let's chill guys! No need to rough-house!" I pried Ichigo's hand off of Shinji's shirt. "Now what's the problem here?"

"He keeps trying to get me to go with him," Ichigo answered.

"And you don't want to, do you?" I felt like I was interrogating him.

"No," he replied.

"Well, you know what I think you should do?" I asked him for my own good.

"What?" he wondered.

"Go with him, he can help you," I told him.

"Help me with what, though?" he crossed his arms.

"You want me to show you?" I took my soul candy out of my pocket.

"What are you doing?" he asked me.

"Just watch," I told him as I popped a piece in my mouth. I then placed my hand over my face. "He helped me with this too."

I closed my eyes and swiped my hand across my face, my mask appearing on my face. It didn't completely cover my face; it only covered my nose, chin, and mouth, which was strange because none of the visoreds' masks were like that. The white of my eyes turned black as night. I reopened my eyes and glanced over at Ichigo, who seemed to be surprised.

"Y-you're one of them?" he stuttered in shock.

"Don't be surprised," my hollowfied voice cracked. "You have this same power. That's why I want you to let Shinji help you. It's so you can control it and it won't take over your body during your battles." I took the mask off.

"Well, we'll see I guess," he shrugged and started heading back to class.

I got back in my gigai and started to follow him to class when Shinji grabbed my wrist and pulled me back. "Hey! Watch the wrist! It hasn't healed yet!" I yanked my wrist back (which hurt more than when he grabbed it) and held it with my left hand.

"You should say that to yourself," he told me. "And I don't believe I ever got your name since you showed up at our place."

"Oh, I guess I never got the chance," I said, "so you can call me Izume. Or Lieutenant Shiba. I don't care whichever one you wanna call me."

"Ok, well we're going back to the warehouse," he took my hand again and started pulling me with him.

"Hey what do you think you're doing?" I yelled.

"We failed at getting Ichigo, so you're still stuck with us until he shows up," he answered.

"That's not what I meant!" I screamed. "You can't just grab my hand and pull me wherever you want me to!"

He ignored me and kept taking me back to the warehouse. He let me go when we arrived at our destination, just in time for both of us to get slapped onto our butts by Hiyori.

"Hey what the heck was that for?" We both shouted at her.

"You guys just took off without telling us where you were going! And if you went to go get that Ichigo guy again you obviously failed!" she yelled back.

"Well you never told me that Shinji went to go retrieve Ichigo last night so I thought you wouldn't mind," I fibbed.

"Shut up baldy!" she slapped me again.

"Grr, you didn't have to hit me that time!" I stood up angrily.

βββββββββ

We never thought Ichigo was going to show up that day so I just hung out with them without anything to do. Nothing fun ever happened here, either we all sat around doing nothing like lazy couch potatoes or there was someone being yelled at by Hiyori. That was only entertaining when it wasn't me being yelled at or being called a baldy.

The next morning I was woken up early by some chatter. I got up and sleepily walked over to where I found the visoreds, and Ichigo. _When did he get here?_ I asked myself in my mind. I sat down on the edge of the broken floor, and looked down at Ichigo, who didn't notice me.

"So, I see you've finally decided to join us," Shinji said.


	35. Observations

**Chapter 35- Observations**

"I'm not here to join you," Ichigo told Shinji. He got straight to the point.

"I see," Shinji said. "Then what are you here for?"

"I need you to tell me how to control my power," Ichigo replied.

A couple moments later they were fighting with each other, swords drawn. I heard the other Visoreds talking about how both of them were holding back. I could guess Ichigo was holding back because he was afraid that his hollow-self would take over. Shinji's reason? Well that I did not know.

I watched them for a while, wondering where Shinji was trying to go with this. For all I knew, they weren't getting anywhere from where they started. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw Hiyori jump over and slap Shinji out through the window of the warehouse. _Well now they're going to get somewhere,_ I thought. I stood up in my spot and made my sword visible, even though I was only in my gigai. It took me a while to figure out how to do it, but I got it. I took my sword out of my sheath and stabbed it into the ground and jumped onto the hilt after using a soul candy. I crouched down and watched Hiyori try to force Ichigo to hollowfy.

"Hey Hiyori! You have to force it outta him! He doesn't know how to hollowfy!" I shouted.

She glanced at me angrily. "Shut up baldy! I didn't ask for your help!"

I got used to the fact that she kept calling me a baldy, so I didn't complain and continued to watch. Eventually Ichigo was overwhelmed by her strength when she had her mask on and his hollow-self was compelled out of him. His now hollowfied self attacked Hiyori and pinned her up against a pillar, nearly choking her to death. Moments later Shinji reappeared from outside and the others pinned Ichigo down with their swords aimed at him. Shinji broke his mask and Ichigo returned to his normal self.

"I bet they're going to make him use Hiyori's stupid trainer like they did with me," I murmured. "Sucks for him."

Then Hiyori's flip-flop came out of nowhere and hit me in the face, with so much force that it knocked me off of my zanpakutou. I sat up irritably. "What was that for?"

She was furious, yet panicked at the same time. "It's the Hiyori Super Trainer! Get it right!"

"Y-you heard that?" I asked her innocently.

"Well, you did say it out loud, didn't you?" she shouted with her teeth clenched at me.

"I wasn't meaning to say it so loudly," I admitted.

βββββββββ

Ichigo had been running on Hiyori's trainer for a while before he started complaining about how stupid it was, just like I did. I guess Hiyori didn't tell him what it was for either. By now, Ichigo had noticed my presence and asked me why I was here.

"'Cause Shinji wouldn't let me leave 'til you showed up," I told him.

"So why are you still here?" he wondered.

"I thought it would be interesting to watch how you do with what's gonna happen later," I half-smiled.

Minutes later Ichigo got pissed enough to through the exercise equipment at Shinji, who got the same results as when I threw it at him. He also called Hiyori's trainer something that it wasn't called and Hiyori and him started to argue about it.

I sighed. This is somewhat similar to what I did when I started training. I guess in some ways, Ichigo and I were a lot alike. Our personalities were similar but we each had traits that the other didn't. Those are the only things that set us apart from each other than our appearance.

I watched as Ichigo continued to complain to Shinji about why he was here. Shinji did as he did with me and placed his palm in front of Ichigo's face. Ichigo went unconscious and they brought him down to their underground battlefield thing. I took my zanpakutou out of the floor, sheathed it, and followed shortly behind.

"Hachi, you know what to do," Shinji said as he plopped Ichigo onto the ground.

Hachi nodded and I guessed he was setting up barriers. I saw that he was using bakudou spells to restrain Ichigo's body. Then a yellow, rectangular shaped, shield-type thing was placed around Ichigo. Hachi made an opening and Lisa stepped in to fight.

I heard a hollow-like roar that came from the direction of Ichigo's body.

"It's starting," Shinji talked out to no one in particular.

"I have a question, Shinji," I nudged his shoulder.

"What is it?" he looked at me.

"So are you guys going to just take turns battling his hollowfied, uh…whatever you call him until he defeats his hollow-self in his inner world?" I wondered.

"Yeah, it's fairer that way," he looked back at Ichigo and Lisa.

"Oh, well am I included in your little rotation thingy?" I tilted my head.

"Yes," he seemed focused.

"Awwww why?" I asked. "I didn't come here to join you either…" I frowned.

"Well, that's not what Shinji decided so just deal and take your turn like the rest of us," Kensei bellowed.

I glanced over at him. "I didn't ask for this. So thank you for everything." Then I realized I hadn't noticed him before even though I've been here for weeks. "Whoa whoa whoa whoa wait a second! Are y-you Kensei Muguruma?"

"Who else would I be?" he asked.

"The former Captain of Squad 9 before Tosen," I pointed out. "And you saved my best friend from a hollow in the Soul Society when we were little."

"Oh, that little brat who wouldn't stop crying right?" he sounded annoyed.

I made an angry expression. "He was not a little brat! I'm pretty sure if he were here right now he'd be very thankful for what you did!"

"Yeah, whatever," he shrugged and stopped paying attention to me.

"Jerk," I muttered under my breath.

I watched the continuous battles between the Visoreds and Ichigo's almost completely hollowfied body until Shinji elbowed my ribs. I rubbed my ribs as I looked over and asked what he wanted.

"You're up," he told me.

"Aww, already?" I complained. I made my zanpakutou visible again and drew it out of its sheath. "Let's get this over with. Hachi! Lemme in!"

Hachi opened up the shield, where I traded spaces with Hiyori and defended myself against the attacks that were thrown at me. That's all I could do for a while, and I didn't want to hurt him. Why exactly did we have to fight him? This continued for about ten minutes before I switched places with Kensei. As I walked out passed him I stuck my tongue out at him hoping he wouldn't notice.

Unfortunately for me, he noticed and grabbed the collar of my shihakuso. "I saw that!" he clenched his teeth.

I wanted to bug him more so I grinned evilly. "HEY LET GO OF MY SHIHAKUSO YOU PERVERT!"

I felt him tug it a little harder. "WHAT WAS THAT? I AM NOT A PERVERT!"

"YES YOU ARE! LOOK HOW CLOSE YOUR HAND IS TO MY-," I grabbed his wrist and tried to pry it off of my shihakuso. "GET AWAY FROM ME!"

We started to argue as we exchanged angry looks and comments with each other. Neither of us would let go until the other one did first.

"Would you guys grow up?" Hiyori screamed at us, aiming a cero at us.

We looked over at her and yelled at the same time that it was the other one who started it. Then we saw the cero and screamed. "WHOA WAIT A SECOND YOU AREN'T GOING TO-!" We were cut off when she released it. We both dived out of the way not to get hit.

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT CHAPTER


	36. Personal Trainer

**Chapter 36- Personal Trainer**

Hiyori could no longer stand Kensei and I's little fall out and drop-kicked me in the face so we would shut up. Kensei started laughing at me because she did nothing to him. I got up off of the ground after being knocked down and dusted off my shihakuso.

"HOW COME HE DOESN'T GET KICKED?" I screamed at her.

"You started it in the first place!" she yelled back.

"BUT DIDN'T YOU SEE WHERE HIS HAND WAS? I WANT HIM TO ATONE FOR HIS PERVERTEDNESS!" I demanded.

"I don't give a crap about where it was! You started it and that's that!" she hissed.

"BUT-!" I started before Shinji interrupted me by putting his arm around my shoulders.

"Just leave it alone. The only thing that matters right now is if Ichigo wins or not," he spoke calmly.

"DUDE!" I threw his arm off of me. "WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP DOING THAT? It's really annoying…"

I was too busy talking to Shinji that I didn't notice that Kensei went in to fight hollowfied Ichigo. After a few minutes the sound of battling came to a cease and I turned to see what had happened. The hollowfied parts on Ichigo's body started to crumble onto the ground and disintegrate. The only part that remained was that mask that covered his face. One side was white and the other side had red stripes on it. He fell to ground as the barrier around him disappeared and Shinji started walking over to stand beside him. I followed closely behind.

Shinji stopped a few feet away from where Ichigo lie, Ichigo's mask lying face up next to him. "So, how do you feel?"

"I feel great," Ichigo replied with a victorious smile upon his face.

I smiled and waited for Shinji's instructions.

βββββββββ

"Why do I have to fight him while hollowfied?" I complained.

"Because it'll help him sustain his mask for longer. He needs to learn how to use it properly," Shinji explained, "and it benefits you too so I don't see why you're complaining."

"I'm complaining because you said I could leave once Ichigo got here!" I indicated.

"But you decided to stay here, so it's your own fault," he sighed.

"I'm leaving," I made my pout face and started marching off towards the stairs.

"No. You're not," Shinji grabbed the collar on the back of my shihakuso and pulled me back. "Don't you want to help him at all?"

I thought for a couple of minutes. "I don't know…"

"Well whether you like it or not you're going to," he led me in the direction to where Ichigo sat quietly waiting on a rock.

"I hate you sometimes," I grumbled.

I got out my zanpakutou and told Ichigo to get ready. He stood up and drew his zanpakutou off his back in response. We moved to a clearer area and I hollowfied. I dashed in at him and he hollowfied as well. He was hollowfying too slow.

"C'mon you gotta hollowfy faster!" I encouraged.

I backed off to let him hollowfy and we continued to battle. Every once in a while his mask would break and he'd have to put it back on. This process continued until Mashiro came back with our lunch.

"YAY FOOD!" I immediately sheathed my sword and flash stepped over to the others and waited for my food. "Ichigo come eat!" I cheered.

He came over and we sat down to eat. I didn't talk much due to the fact that I was scarfing down my lunch. I was so hungry I could eat a pound of rice! The others were talking while I continued to down my food. When I finished about ten minutes before everyone else did I stood up and stretched.

"Mmm that was delicious!" I rubbed my stomach. "Thanks for the food!"

After Ichigo finished eating we started training again, but shortly after we were interrupted by the appearance of our friend Orihime. She walked halfway down the stairs before stopping.

"Umm can someone tell me where the restroom is?" she joked.

Kensei, who wasn't so fond of jokes, clenched his teeth angrily. I lowered my sword and turned towards her. "Hey Orihime! What's up?"

"Hey Izume!" she smiled and made her way down the rest of the stairs.

She reached the bottom and approached us carefully. She talked to me and Ichigo for a bit, because she was wondering why we weren't going to school. We chatted for a couple more minutes and then Hachi took her from us to talk about her power. While that happened I redrew my zanpakutou as I stood up and rested its blade on my shoulder.

"We're not done yet, Ichigo. Let's resume," I waited for him to draw his zanpakutou and hollowfy before I attacked him and hollowfied myself.

We "finished" our training a couple days later, because Ichigo wanted to leave early before we were done completing it. I followed him out, thanking Shinji and the others for helping me as I walked by. I quickly got in my gigai as we left the warehouse.


	37. Visitors From Hueco Mundo

**Chapter 37- Visitors from Hueco Mundo**

**Author's Note: The part before the time change happened before Ichigo got the ability to control his hollow powers! Afterwards it goes forward to the present! Just so there's no confusion.**

Later that night we encountered some unexpected guests from Hueco Mundo. Renji, Captain Hitsugaya, Harue, Ikkaku, Yumichika, Rukia, and I had all felt some powerful spiritual pressures appear and we were out to go find them. Rukia and I went together, finding Ichigo defending Chad from an arrancar. Chad ran off after a while and Rukia ate a piece of soul candy. She told her gigai to hold Ichigo back as she took his fight from him and explained that he can't bear all of the fights by himself. Once she finished off the arrancar (which seemed far too easy from my point of view) I watched as Ichigo was surprised that her Soul Reaper powers had returned. A stronger spiritual pressure than the one Rukia just took care of emerged behind us and I quickly turned around to face the person whom it belonged to.

"Let me guess, you're an espada?" I asked the arrancar with short blue hair.

"Which one of you is the strongest?" he asked impatiently.

Rukia's gigai released Ichigo and he held out his zanpakutou. I unsheathed mine and held it out, trying to direct the arrancar's attention away from Ichigo. I had no clue whether I was stronger than Ichigo or not, but guessing from the results of Ichigo's fight with Captain Zaraki a couple months ago I figured he probably was. I was too distracted thinking about the difference in our strength and failed to realize that the arrancar was coming to attack me.

"Izume watch out!" I heard one of them scream. I couldn't tell who it was that said it, but their warning was too late for me to react to it.

I attempted to block his attack with my sword, but my delayed reaction was no help to protect me. I felt his hand pierce through my side and coughed, feeling a bit of blood trickle down my chin and drip onto the ground. He immediately extracted his hand from my abdomen and moved on to Rukia as I fell to my knees stiffly, clenching the wound with my hand.

"Ichigo run aw-!" Rukia shouted as the arrancar did the same to her. She fell to the ground, blood gushing out from her wound.

"I knew it couldn't have been you two," he figured. "So now it's your turn."

Ichigo, who was already frustrated that Rukia and I were injured, attacked the arrancar head on. As I knelt on the ground watching them, I thought of how it would be better if I healed both myself and Rukia. I'd heal Rukia first since she seemed more injured than I was, and since I probably had more strength than she did. In fact, she needed it more than I did. I got up, clutching the wound in my side with my right hand, and walked over to Rukia. I was careful not to get caught up in Ichigo's fight with the arrancar as I knelt down and started using my kidou to heal her. Removing my hand made the pain all the more excruciating.

"Hang in there, Rukia," I calmly said, a painful grimace on my face.

Ichigo and the arrancar had brought their fight elsewhere as I continued to heal Rukia. When I finished healing her, I helped her back up to her feet. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, you should heal yourself now," Rukia told me, a little bit worried.

"I'll be fine," I told her, hiding the pain with a slight smile. "I don't think I have enough energy left to heal myself, but I'll manage."

"We can go ask Orihime if she can heal you," Rukia suggested.

"Nah, it's getting dark. I don't wanna bug her at this time of day," I shrugged my shoulders. "I'm gonna go find Ichigo, you wanna come?"

"You sure you don't want to be healed first?" she put a hand on my shoulder.

"I'm sure," I slightly nodded. "If you're coming let's go, enless you want to go find the others who are fighting arrancars."

"I'll go with you," she said.

We started to jump through the sky towards where we felt Ichigo's spiritual pressure. It's always easy to find someone who can't control their own spiritual pressure. A couple yards away we saw the blue-haired arrancar standing in the air, and Ichigo standing on the broken ground. He was breathing hard and had a hand over his face, his hollow self must be trying to overwhelm him.

"Ichigo," I muttered. "You gotta fight back."

Ichigo released what seemed to be the last Getsuga Tenshou he could handle before his hollow self would take over. It collided with the arrancar, who got a scar on his chest from it. Moments later a garganta opened and I didn't believe who I saw standing in it.

"T-Tosen?" I shuddered.

"Grimmjow," Tosen spoke.

The arrancar walked over to Tosen and the garganta like the battle was over until the next time he came back._ Why leave if the battle isn't finished?_ I wondered. I watched them leave with my arms crossed.

"The name is Grimmjow. Grimmjow Jaegerjaques. Pray that you won't ever have to hear that name again," the arrancar said as he left the World of the Living, back to Hueco Mundo.

"It's about time you introduce yourself," I said too quietly for him to hear.

βββββββββ

Days passed after we had finished our hollowfication training. Then one night we were visited by our Hueco Mundan friend, Grimmjow, once more. I went along with Ichigo to the location of where I sensed him.

"Let's try to finish this before it gets dark," I suggested.

"Yeah," Ichigo agreed.

When we were spotted I sensed Grimmjow's incoming attack towards Ichigo and flash stepped out of the way. Was it me or was something different about Grimmjow? I took a closer look at Grimmjow because I knew something had changed about him. After a while of studying his appearance I finally noticed that his left arm had completely vanished.

"What happened to your left arm?" I heard Ichigo ask, already in his bankai.

"I got rid of it," Grimmjow answered.

They continued to fight and I noticed that Ichigo was acting a bit different than he did in his previous fight with Grimmjow. I could tell that Grimmjow was aware of it as well.

"You're acting like you did something to become stronger," Grimmjow pointed out. "If you are I would like you to show me what you've acquired."

"Alrightey then," Ichigo acted upon Grimmjow's request and hollowfied.

I sat criss-cross in the sky, quietly watching their fight continue. _You can only stay hollowfied for like eleven seconds, so you can't be expecting to defeat him within that time span, Ichigo. And in fact it is your fault for wanting to quit training so early._ I realized how easy it was for me to point out the mistakes that other people made and decided to stop judging him even if I was just thinking. Thinking this stuff makes me feel like I'm acting more superior to them, and I hate that feeling if they're my friends. I shook it out of my mind and refocused on the battle.

A while later, Ichigo's mask shattered and Grimmjow had lodged his sword through Ichigo's hand, which pinned Ichigo to the ground. He aimed a cero at Ichigo, and I thought about going to help him, but that would destroy his pride. But I couldn't just let him stay there to get hit by a cero…

"Ichigo!" I flash stepped next to him and grabbed Grimmjow's sword. "Sorry, this might hurt!" I tried to pull the sword out of his hand but it was stuck to deep into the ground. "Kssah it's not working!"

I sort of gave up and turned to face Grimmjow as he released his cero. "Would you mind?"

"Mind what?" Ichigo asked.

"If I took over for you," I wanted permission first. "Would that be okay? I can't get you freed."

"Go on, I'll get myself out," he told me.

I nodded then whispered in the last couple of seconds I had before the cero would hit us, "Bankai!" I held my sword out in position then quickly hollowfied and used my hand to deflect the cero at the last second after I was completely transformed. When the cero had faded away I saw Grimmjow's expectant face.

"Get out of the way!" he yelled at me.

"Sorry, but I can't let you kill him," I grinned. "Not even over my dead body."

"Then I guess I'll just have to kill you," Grimmjow grinned too.

I jumped up, no apparent weapon in my hand, and grabbed his collar on his shirt type thing with my left arm. I formed a sword in my right hand and swung it downward, only to have Grimmjow use a sonido to escape my attack. I heard him reappear behind me and quickly turned around, making my weapon vanish. I used my right arm to block his hand from reaching me and gritted my teeth. He then used his other arm to gather up a cero.

"I can play by those rules too," I told him, pointing two fingers at his chest. I gathered my own cero, and it's red color grew bigger and bigger. I saw his confused expression about how I can do that and he backed off and canceled his cero. I suppressed mine in my hand and waited for him to speak.

"What are you?" he asked. "And how can you use a cero?"

"The answer is simple. I'm a soul reaper, with hollow powers," I explained. "Why'd you back away? Didn't you want to kill me? Or were you afraid I was going to kill you first?" A smirk grew on my face.

"Don't get cocky with me, soul reaper!" he leaped at, his arms ready to kill.

I formed my zanpaktou in my right hand, prepared for battle. I quickly looked over to see how Ichigo was doing and noticed Rukia was there helping him out. I refocused on Grimmjow and waited for the moment his arm would reach me. It was about one foot away from me before Shinji stole my opponent from me and pushed me away.

"SHINJI! THIS ISN'T YOUR FIGHT STAY OUT OF IT!" I irritably yelled at him. "DON'T THINK YOU CAN JUST SHOW UP AND TAKE SOMEONE'S BATTLE FROM THEM!"

He ignored me and it seemed that Grimmjow was also bugged by his interference. I watched crossly as they exchanged attacks. I wanted to attack Shinji for just showing up all of the sudden, but if I did then I might actually be saving him from an attack. So instead I decided to go check up on Ichigo, removing my hollow mask from my face as I jumped over to him and Rukia.

"Hey how's it going over here?" I casually asked as I landed a few feet away from them.

Rukia gave me a how-do-you-think look, probably asking herself why I would just casually ask that question. I tilted my head when no one answered. They managed to free the sword from the ground and unpinned Ichigo, whose hand was healed.

"Where'd Shinji come from?" Ichigo wondered.

"Beats me," I shrugged. "He stole my fight."

"But you took mine," Ichigo pointed out.

"I asked you first, so I didn't steal it from you…" I defended.

I felt a garganta open up in the sky and we all looked in its direction. I was expecting it to be Tosen again but I stood corrected. Standing in the garganta was Ulquiorra Schiffer, the espada that had caused me all those injuries the first time we had encountered him.

I narrowed my eyebrows. "Ulquiorra," I hissed. I didn't want any trouble so I stood my ground and watched.

It seemed that Ulquiorra was only here to retrieve Grimmjow and bring him back to Hueco Mundo. Knowing this, I would gladly jump up and stop him, because having an enemy leave a battle twice was just downright frustrating. I watched as they left the World of the Living. What the heck happened to Shinji? No one knew but at least there'd be some peace for a while. Hopefully…


	38. Jeepers CreepersLong Time No See

**Chapter 38 – Jeepers Creepers…Long Time No See**

We waited for days until this horrible news was brought forward. It's been days since the last encounter with the arrancars, and this was serious business. We all knew there was going to be a problem associated with this.

I slightly pushed Captain Hitsugaya off to the side and stepped forward to speak. Broadcasting ourselves on a giant screen to the Head Captain was kind of nerve wrecking for me. It was the only way we could communicate with him though.

"Head Captain, please! I'll go to Hueco Mundo and retrieve her," I put on a serious expression, but also mixed in a bit of a request. "I can fin-."

"You will not!" Head Captain Yamamoto bellowed. "You will come back to the Soul Society and prepare for battle! All of you!"

I looked up at the screen with a shocked face. "But, Head Captain!"

The screen turned black and communications were cut off. I didn't really feel like going back to the Soul Society, but since it was the Head Captain's orders I had no choice. I ran up to my room and rummaged through a pile of clothes for my soul candy. I soon found it and popped a piece into my mouth. _Well this'll be fun_, I thought as I slid down the railing and headed out the door.

βββββββββ

*A couple days ago*

I clenched my teeth as I backflipped back onto my feet after deflecting the arrancar's attack and slid to a stop in the middle of the air.

"Who are you?" I asked, noticing what looked like an unconscious person he was holding by his side. "Answer me or I'll slice you to bits!"

I kept observing the non-moving body hanging in his arm. _Who was that?_ It seemed to me like another arrancar, by what it was dressed in. The arrancar started walking towards me as if he wasn't going to attack.

"I've got a gift for you. Saved his life from Master Ulquiorra," he held the body out in front of him.

_Ulquiorra!_ A shudder ran through my body as I heard that name. "What are you talking about? I don't know that person…it could be a trap." I didn't let my guard down.

"Take a look for yourself. This guy was talking to me on the way here before he passed out. Said to find a soul reaper named Izume for him," he tossed the body from above me and I caught it in my arms. "You match his description perfectly."

"Huh?" I was a bit confused as I took a closer look at what I was now holding in my arms.

As I stood there observing the body, the arrancar watched me carefully. I felt a weak spiritual pressure from this person. It seemed awfully familiar to me. He was dressed in what looked like an espada's clothes, with a hole on his stomach. _An arrancar? No it couldn't be._ I continued looking then was especially careful when I got to his face.

"N-no way…" I was stunned. "It can't be.."

The arrancar started chuckling. "You must be the soul reaper he was talking about, I can see it on your face. He's the only reason I came here for I'll be going now."

A garganta opened up behind the arrancar, and I looked up at him. "WAIT!" I screamed. "Please tell me why you saved him!" But my question was ignored as the arrancar retreated back to Hueco Mundo.

I focused my attention back to the person I held in my arms. I couldn't tell whether he was a soul reaper or an arrancar, but I didn't sense anything hollow like from him. I felt him slowly start to breathe again, but in his condition he wouldn't last. There was blood on his arms and a cut opened on his face. I needed to get help from Squad 4 immediately. I started to carry him back to my house, dialing Squad 4 on my pager.

Once I reached my house I jumped in through the window of my bedroom, not to be noticed by any of the others. I started using my kidou to heal him as much as I could. _Please, pick up Squad 4. I really need you to help save my friend!_ I felt a tear trickle down my cheek.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" I heard a voice coming from my phone.

"Yes! Yes! Please! I need help! I have someone here, someone important that's in a really bad condition! They might die soon if I don't get help!" I found myself begging.

"Please calm down, we just need to know your name and location," the voice said calmly.

"Name is Lieutenant Izume Shiba from Squad 13. Location is in the World of the Living," I rushed through my words, hoping they would come soon.

"Someone will be there to help you as soon as they can," the voice told me.

I hung up my phone and sat there watching myself heal him. I don't know why I was crying over seeing him, because from what I remember he was that annoying guy from a long time ago. Help soon arrived, as I saw a member from Squad 4 hop in through my window. It was Lieutenant Kotetsu.

"Who is this?" She asked me as I moved out of the way and she took over.

"His name is Kaoru. Kaoru Suzuki. I knew him back from Soul Reaper Academy," I replied, wiping tears off of my face.

She seemed to be surprised after hearing his name. "He's…that special kid…who disappeared after that field mission that present day Lieutenant Hisagi led. You were there too but you barely made it out alive."

"Special? How is he special?" I wondered.

"I don't think they ever told you this, but he was rescued, but then kidnapped again after that. He became a Soul Reaper during that time he was rescued. How did you get him back from Hueco Mundo?" she asked me.

"A-an arrancar just gave him to me…and he was?" I was interested, but wondered why I was never told this before.

"Yes. And don't worry about his condition. He should be conscious within a couple hours after I'm done healing him up. You should bring him back to the Soul Society in a couple days," she suggested.

"O-okay, thanks for your help Lieutenant Kotetsu," I continued to watch her heal him.

"No problem, it's what Squad 4 does," she lightly smiled. I gladly returned one to her.

After she finished healing him she told me to watch after him. I guess I was going to be his babysitter for the next couple of days. She left with all of her tools and I sat on the side of the bed next to Kaoru. He still had the hole on his stomach, which I forgot to ask Lieutenant Kotetsu about. I assumed he must be fine other than that, and his shihakuso started returning back to its normal state.

"What the-?" I continued to watch and he seemed to be completely recovered already. I felt weird for doing this, but I reached my hand and put it over his stomach where the hole was. Now, the hole wasn't there. This was so confusing. It was kind of awkward but I started rubbing his stomach, trying to convince myself that he wasn't an arrancar.

I heard a noise come out of his mouth and it startled me, so I immediately removed my hand like I did nothing. "Huh?" I looked over at his face, which had a relaxed smile on it. I mouthed the words "what the hell?"

"Hey, why'd you stop? That felt good," he opened his eyes and sat up like he was never hurt at all.

"Wha-wha-wha…? H-how?" I stood up instantly and turned to face him.

"How what?" he said as he studied his surroundings. "And where am I?" His eyes reached mine and he jumped to his feet.

"How are you awake? Lieutenant Kotetsu said you wouldn't be awake for a couple of hours!" I stood there in confusion.

"Holy shit!" he ran over and gave me a big bear hug. "I remember you! I'm so glad you're here!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait up a sec…why are you hugging me?" I narrowed my eyes. He surprisingly smelt really good, somehow.

"Because I missed you! It's been such a long time since I've last seen you, Izume! And you're a Lieutenant, that's great!" he responded.

I felt myself smile and decided, _eh what the heck,_ and put my arms around him. "You haven't changed one bit, Kaoru."

We stood there, embracing each other for the first time ever. It felt kind of nice to have someone hug you. I was glad he was back, though I don't know why.


	39. An Interesting Introduction

**Chapter 39- An Interesting Introduction**

I spent the rest of the night having a conversation with the guy who I desperately tried to ignore in the past. He seemed only a little different from last time I've seen him, so I knew something had happened. He exhaled and gave me a weird look.

"Are you even listening to me? You're kind of creeping me out with the staring," he waved a hand in front of my face to get my attention back to normal.

I shook my head to regain my focus. "Oh, yeah sorry I'm just lost in thought. Please, continue."

I was sitting on a chair across from Kaoru, who remained comfortable on my bedside. He resumed telling me about his adventure in Hueco Mundo for the past couple of years that had passed by. After a while I began questioning myself about why I disliked him so much, other than the fact that he creeped me out sometimes. He was actually pretty decent, and the way he talked seemed calm and welcoming. I couldn't help but to put a soft smile on my face.

"Izume, you're doing it again," he laughed, tapping my feet with one of his. "Maybe it's best I tell you some other time when you're less interested in my good looks."

"Wh-what? No way!" I felt my cheeks begin to redden and twisted my head away so he wouldn't see. _He really hasn't changed at all!_

He got up and stretched out his arms with a big yawn. He walked to the door that led out to the hallway when he was finished and twisted it open. "Do you have anything to eat?"

"I should have some food. Tell me what you want, I'll get it for you," I brought myself between him and the door so he wouldn't leave the room. I didn't want him to meet the others just yet, so I wanted to keep him holed up in my room for a while. It sounded like a crazy idea for me to be hiding a guy in my own bedroom, but I was really hoping that no one would find out for a while.

"Why can't I come with you?" since he was a bit taller than me he leaned over to look out into the hallway.

"Because, it's a surprise. I'm saving it for later!" I pushed him back with both my hands. "Or do you want to go out to eat? At a restaurant I mean..."

"Did you just ask me out?" Kaoru's mouth formed into a smirk. "I knew you liked me!"

"That's not it at all! Get it into your thick skull!" I held myself back from punching him in the face. "But we have to stop by somewhere if you want to go to a restaurant."

He just smiled and pushed me back into the hallway. "Let's go then."

"We're leaving through the window," I shoved him back into my bedroom.

"I don't see why we can't go through the door like normal people," like before he brought me back into the hall.

"Okay! Fine! Just stop touching me!" I slapped his hands off of me. I grabbed his hand and flash stepped over to the door and threw him out. "Wait here!" I told him before slamming the door shut. I looked around the room and saw everyone's eyes pointing at me, knowing they wanted some sort of explanation.

"I'll explain later...I have things to do," I rushed into the group and found my gigai, pulling myself into it and then running outside. "Let's go to Urahara's shop. I'm going to buy you a gift."

Kaoru smiled at the thought of you buying him something. "I don't know where that is. Did you change clothes?"

I sighed and walked up to him. "No, this is a gigai. Heard of 'em?"

"Nope. What are they?" he poked aroud on my arms and shoulders.

Ignoring his actions I answered his question and tugged onto his sleeve. I figured that since he's been gone I'll have to fill him in with a whole lot of things. I was dragging him behind me as I made my way towards Urahara's place, until I got sick of walking and came up with a stupid idea.

"Kaoru, I can't use flash step in one of these. Would you mind carrying me and bringing us there? I'll give you the directions," I bit my lip. It was awkward to ask him this, but it was faster so I had to. It probably gave him even more reason to think that I "liked" him but to me it was just an act of friendship.

"So basically these gigai things make you into a human?" he caught up to me and picked me up bridal style. I was in my school uniform so I didn't think it was the best way.

"...Yeah. But you can still use kidou in them. I'm an exception to that though due to my zanpakutou's abilities," I pointed up to the sky. "Go up. I need a visual."

Kaoru gladly abliged and jumped up high into the air. "How so?"

I looked around until I found my target destination in the distance. It wasn't far away but this way was still faster. I then pointed at the shop and Kaoru began to flash step in that direction. "I can make my zanpakutou disappear and reappear at will. So I can still use it in a gigai. I just can't go into bankai."

"Interesting. I think our zanpakutous are similar in that sense then," I looked up at his face in confusion. He was putting some thought into it as well.

We were airborne for a couple more minutes before he brought us down to the ground in front of the shop. I had to ask him to set me down before I went over to the door and knocked my fist upon it. I waited until Urahara came to the door and greeted me. Seeing Kaoru behind me brought a surprised expression to his face.

"Well who do we have here?" Urahara stepped aside and motioned the two of you inside. I walked past him with the two men following shortly behind until I reached the circular table and took a seat.

"I'd like you to meet Kaoru. He went to Soul Reaper Academy with me until he was kidnapped during our field mission," I half-smiled. "We were reunited just today actually."

Kaoru sat down beside me and Urahara across from us. Urahara smiled as he remembered the talented fellow from years ago. "I might have to spend some time to talk with him then. I mean when you guys are done with your plans. So what brings you here tonight, Izume?"

I rolled my eyes. "I need a gigai for Kaoru. He got hungry and I thought I'd take him to a restaurant for dinner. Don't get the wrong idea, we're only friends."

Kaoru wrapped around my shoulders and I just glared at him, waiting for him to open up his obnoxious mouth of his.

"Don't listen to her, she's too afraid to admit that she's falling for me," Kaoru teased.

Urahara laughed at the joke and rose to his feet. "I'll be right back with your purchase."

I crossed my arms and ignored Kaoru. I knew the whole time that he's had a crush on me, but that doesn't change how I feel about him. I refrained from saying anything to him for the time being, seeing that it'll only encourage him to be the creeper he was. After a while I got irritated how he didn't remove his arm and threw him off of me.

"Stop touching me you creep," I turned myself away from him angrily.

"Then why did you allow me to put it there in the first place?" I felt him grinning behind me, but choose not to do anything about it. I didn't even answer to let him think whatever he wanted. I didn't care about it anymore. "You're just playing hard to get and you know it."

"Stop liking me so much!" I nearly snapped. "What about me makes you want to get closer to me physically and relationship wise?"

There was silence as I flipped around to face him, awaiting his response. It was only now that the guy chose not to speak. I grunted and said nothing more. I just watched him as he observed my actions. _He's never afraid to say anything to me, so why isn't he talking now?_

I shrugged it off and took a deep breath. "Sorry for flipping out on you. You're just pushing your luck in trying to ever get me to like you back."

Urahara returned to the room with a gigai in his arms. He tossed it over to me and I pulled out my wallet and handed him money in exchange for it. I then walked over to Kaoru on my knees and shrank down, so I could at least get him to snap out of his unusual silence.

"Here," I held the gigai out for him. He took it and looked back at me.

"Don't I need clothes for this?" he moved it around a bit in front of him.

I switched my gaze over to Urahara. "Have any spare clothes for him to use? Just for now, I'll buy him some more later."

It took a few minutes, but we managed to get Kaoru some clothes and I left the room with Urahara to give him some time to change into them after getting into his gigai. I leaned up against the wall, angered with myself for an unknown reason. I couldn't grasp why I felt this way but I had to get over it somehow. Urahara and I soon walked back into the room when Kaoru had finished his business and I knelt down in front of him on the floor.

"I'll say it again, but I'm sorry Kaoru," I tilted my head a bit, wondering what he was thinking about. "Kaoru?" I moved down to look into his eyes. They were closed, but I knew he was planning something. He always does this kind of thing when I upset him. I kept on waiting for some kind of response, when suddenly he grabbed me with his arms and kissed me. My eyes widened with shock and I felt my face fill with the color of red. I didn't know how to react and before I could even gather my thoughts he pulled away.

I was shocked to know he would even attempt to do something like this, especially since I told him a large amount of times that I didn't feel the same way as he did. No one spoke a word, not even making one sound. I didn't know what to do, but I managed to calm myself down and begin processing my thoughts correctly. After what seemed an eternity I got fed up with the silence and decided to break it.

"Let's go eat dinner. You must be starving," I stood up slowly and inched my way over to the door. I expected him to say something about how I wasn't mad at him like I thought I would be, but I was strangely more calm and shocked about what just happened. "Come on, before it get's late."

Kaoru rose up and met me by the door, with his lips curled up into a smile. I had no idea what was going on in his head right now, but just trying to think of the possible answers gave me the chills. I suspected he assumed what my feelings were for him, but I couldn't confirm that I was right about it.

βββββββββ

We arrived at a small restaurant, just near the river that flowed through Karakura Town. I once again took the lead and walked to the inside of the building. It was decent but not too expensive. I already had owed Urahara for helping me buy stuff for my house. Kaoru followed me to the "Please wait here" sign and we stood there until an employee took us to a table. As we sat down across from one another we picked up the menus and searched for a meal that we would eat.

"Pick whatever you'd like," I told him after finding what I would like to eat. I set the menu down and laced my hands together on top of the table. There wasn't one moment that was more awkward than it was right now. Kaoru hadn't spoken one word to you since you left Urahara's shop.

"I've decided," he also set his menu down and then leaned on his arm, with his elbow propped up on the table. "And, I'm sorry about earlier. I don't know what I was thinking."

"And neither do I...but I forgive you now let's stop acting weird and have some fun okay?" I tried to make things sound happier, and hopefully it would work. A waitress came up to the table and asked if we were ready to eat. I told her what I wanted, and Kaoru told her what he wanted. She left the table and went to place our order.

We sat at the table not knowing what to talk about or what to do. I guess trying to have fun was impossible when both him and I were feeling bad about what happened. When our food finally arrived we both picked up our forks and began to eat away, one bite at a time. Our drinks had came a while after.

"Let's keep this between us," I suggested, a mouth full of food.

"Yeah..." Kaoru nodded.


End file.
